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mrgloom
Asked: 2015-03-13 02:55:55 +0800 CST

How can I run a program and watch its activity using top?

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I have a small program which I compiled myself. It’s CPU intensive, so I want to watch the CPU usage when it’s working.

However, when I run ./myprog, I can’t run top immediately and sequentially.

programming

5 Answers

  1. Another suggestion: open a new tab on your terminal emulator.

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  2. Best Answer

    You can run it in background:

    ./myprogram &

    To resume it from background use the fg command, for example:

    fg 1

    To see all jobs in background, run the jobs command:

    jobs
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  3. You can:

    1. send it in background (see @Panta's answer) if you can; this is not possible or messy if the program need to do input/output on the console;

    2. use another virtual console (by default, you have 6); you can switch with ctrl-alt-F1 to F6 and login;

    3. Use a terminal multiplexer like tmux or screen.

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  4. pidstat might be useful for you, I think.

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  5. Since your program is so CPU hungry, run top first in one terminal screen and ./myprog in a second terminal screen (or tab as mentioned). Since top is already running at this point ./myprog won't interfere with it starting up.

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