DragonFly On-Line Manual Pages

SETPROCTITLE(3)       DragonFly Library Functions Manual       SETPROCTITLE(3)

NAME
     setproctitle -- set the process title for ps(1)

LIBRARY
     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <sys/types.h>
     #include <unistd.h>

     void
     setproctitle(const char *fmt, ...);

DESCRIPTION
     The setproctitle() library routine sets the process title that appears on
     the ps(1) command.

     The title is set from the executable's name, followed by the result of a
     printf(3) style expansion of the arguments as specified by the fmt argu-
     ment.  If the fmt argument begins with a ``-'' character, the exe-
     cutable's name is skipped.

     If fmt is NULL, the process title is restored.

EXAMPLES
     To set the title on a daemon to indicate its activity:

           setproctitle("talking to %s", inet_ntoa(addr));

SEE ALSO
     ps(1), w(1), kvm(3), kvm_getargv(3), printf(3)

STANDARDS
     setproctitle() is implicitly non-standard.  Other methods of causing the
     ps(1) command line to change, including copying over the argv[0] string
     are also implicitly non-portable.  It is preferable to use an operating
     system supplied setproctitle() if present.

     Unfortunately, it is possible that there are other calling conventions to
     other versions of setproctitle(), although none have been found by the
     author as yet.  This is believed to be the predominant convention.

     It is thought that the implementation is compatible with other systems,
     including NetBSD and BSD/OS.

HISTORY
     setproctitle() first appeared in FreeBSD 2.2.  Other operating systems
     have similar functions.

AUTHORS
     Peter Wemm <peter@FreeBSD.org> stole the idea from the Sendmail 8.7.3
     source code by Eric Allman <eric@sendmail.org>.

DragonFly 3.5                  December 16, 1995                 DragonFly 3.5