Viewing full output of PS command

Question

Using the auxww flags, you will see the full path to output in both your terminal window and from shell scripts.

darragh@darraghserver ~ $uname -a
SunOS darraghserver 5.10 Generic_142901-13 i86pc i386 i86pc

darragh@darraghserver ~ $which ps
/usr/bin/ps<br>

darragh@darraghserver ~ $/usr/ucb/ps auxww | grep ps
darragh 13680  0.0  0.0 3872 3152 pts/1    O 14:39:32  0:00 /usr/ucb/ps -auxww
darragh 13681  0.0  0.0 1420  852 pts/1    S 14:39:32  0:00 grep ps

ps aux lists all processes executed by all users. See man ps for details. The ww flag sets unlimited width.

-w         Wide output. Use this option twice for unlimited width.
w          Wide output. Use this option twice for unlimited width.

I found the answer on the following blog:
http://www.snowfrog.net/2010/06/10/solaris-ps-output-truncated-at-80-columns/

It is likely that you're using a pager such as less or most since the output of ps aux is longer than a screenful. If so, the following options will cause (or force) long lines to wrap instead of being truncated.

ps aux | less -+S

ps aux | most -w

If you use either of the following commands, lines won't be wrapped but you can use your arrow keys or other movement keys to scroll left and right.

ps aux | less -S    # use arrow keys, or Esc-( and Esc-), or Alt-( and Alt-) 

ps aux | most       # use arrow keys, or < and > (Tab can also be used to scroll right)

Lines are always wrapped for more and pg.

When ps aux is used in a pipe, the w option is unnecessary since ps only uses screen width when output is to the terminal.

simple and perfect:

ps -efww

won't truncate line

Just throw it on cat, which line-wraps automatically

ps aux | cat

Passing it a few ws will ignore the display width.

If you are specifying the output format manually you also need to make sure the args option is last in the list of output fields, otherwise it will be truncated.

ps -A -o args,pid,lstart gives

/usr/lib/postgresql/9.5/bin 29900 Thu May 11 10:41:59 2017
postgres: checkpointer proc 29902 Thu May 11 10:41:59 2017
postgres: writer process    29903 Thu May 11 10:41:59 2017
postgres: wal writer proces 29904 Thu May 11 10:41:59 2017
postgres: autovacuum launch 29905 Thu May 11 10:41:59 2017
postgres: stats collector p 29906 Thu May 11 10:41:59 2017
[kworker/2:0]               30188 Fri May 12 09:20:17 2017
/usr/lib/upower/upowerd     30651 Mon May  8 09:57:58 2017
/usr/sbin/apache2 -k start  31288 Fri May 12 07:35:01 2017
/usr/sbin/apache2 -k start  31289 Fri May 12 07:35:01 2017
/sbin/rpc.statd --no-notify 31635 Mon May  8 09:49:12 2017
/sbin/rpcbind -f -w         31637 Mon May  8 09:49:12 2017
[nfsiod]                    31645 Mon May  8 09:49:12 2017
[kworker/1:0]               31801 Fri May 12 09:49:15 2017
[kworker/u16:0]             32658 Fri May 12 11:00:51 2017

but ps -A -o pid,lstart,args gets you the full command line:

29900 Thu May 11 10:41:59 2017 /usr/lib/postgresql/9.5/bin/postgres -D /tmp/4493-d849-dc76-9215 -p 38103
29902 Thu May 11 10:41:59 2017 postgres: checkpointer process   
29903 Thu May 11 10:41:59 2017 postgres: writer process   
29904 Thu May 11 10:41:59 2017 postgres: wal writer process   
29905 Thu May 11 10:41:59 2017 postgres: autovacuum launcher process   
29906 Thu May 11 10:41:59 2017 postgres: stats collector process   
30188 Fri May 12 09:20:17 2017 [kworker/2:0]
30651 Mon May  8 09:57:58 2017 /usr/lib/upower/upowerd
31288 Fri May 12 07:35:01 2017 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
31289 Fri May 12 07:35:01 2017 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
31635 Mon May  8 09:49:12 2017 /sbin/rpc.statd --no-notify
31637 Mon May  8 09:49:12 2017 /sbin/rpcbind -f -w
31645 Mon May  8 09:49:12 2017 [nfsiod]
31801 Fri May 12 09:49:15 2017 [kworker/1:0]
32658 Fri May 12 11:00:51 2017 [kworker/u16:0]

you can set output format,eg to see only the command and the process id.

ps -eo pid,args

see the man page of ps for more output format. alternatively, you can use the -w or --width n options.

If all else fails, here's another workaround, (just to see your long cmds)

awk '{ split(FILENAME,f,"/") ; printf "%s: %s\n", f[3],$0 }' /proc/[0-9]*/cmdline