The following is from the current proc(5) man page:
/proc/[pid]/cmdline
This read-only file holds the complete command line for the process,
unless the process is a zombie. In the latter case, there is nothing in
this file: that is, a read on this file will return 0 characters. The
command-line arguments appear in this file as a set of strings separated
by null bytes ('\0'), with a further null byte after the last string.
I believe that the end of the first sentence should say:
"unless the process is a kernel process or a zombie."
or maybe it would read better as:
"unless it is a kernel process or a zombie."
You might also add something like the following at the end:
"When cmdline is empty, the stat or status file (below) can be used
to determine whether or not a process is a zombie.
I'm no kernel expert, so please make sure this is correct. It's just
something I noticed while poking around in /proc/
Thanks, and Happy New Years!
-Jeff Norden, jeff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Dept of Math, Tenn Tech Univ, Cookeville TN 38505 (931)372-3441
