Question

I’m running a command in my linux server (Ubuntu).
For example:

screen -A -h 1500 -m -dmS test_command_one /home/SKY-users/SKY-001/./script

Is there any way to the PID of this background progress which screen name is: test_command_one?

ps aux | grep test_command_one:

root      6573  8.1  2.4 271688 123804 pts/4   Ss+  Oct19   3:04 /home/SKY-users/SKY-001/./ ...

I’d like to get back this PID: 6573

PHP: (easy)

<?php 
$output = shell_exec('sudo ps aux | grep test_command_one');
$array = explode("\n", $output);
echo '<pre>'.print_r($array, true).'</pre>';
?>

Thanks for help!

Answer 1

Edit:

By combining with code by @WagnerVaz

$mystring = "test_command_one";
exec("ps aux | grep 'screen .* $mystring' | grep -v grep | awk '{ print $2 }' | head -1", $out);
print "The PID is: " . $out[0];

Explanation

• ps aux – shows processes for all users and hidden processes too
• grep – filters only lines containing “screen” and then “test_command_one” in the same line
• grep -v – removes from output the very same line which we are executing, because it will also be matched
• awk ‘{ print $2 }’ – awk splits input into columns and uses multiple spaces as separator. This print contents of 2nd column
• head -1 – limits output only to the first line. This is in case you have multiple screen running, only first ID is returned.