Why does "ps aux | grep x" give better results than "pgrep x"?

The ps aux | grep x command gives "better" results than pgrep x essentially because you are missing an option with the latter.

Simply use the -f option for pgrep to search the full command line and not only the process name which is its default behavior, eg:

pgrep -f php5

Unlike the ps | grep construction with which you need to filter out the grep line or use pattern tricks, pgrep just won't pick itself by design.

Moreover, should your pattern appear in ps USER column, you'll get unwanted processes in the output, pgrep doesn't suffer from this flaw.

If you want full details instead of just the pids, you can use:

ps wup $(pgrep -f python)

which is simpler and more reliable than

ps aux | grep python | grep -v grep

or

ps aux | grep p[y]thon

ps aux includes the full command line (path and parameters), while pgrep only looks at the first 15 characters of the executable's names

ps aux returns the full command line of each process, while pgrep only looks at the names of the executables.

That means that grepping ps aux output will match anything that occurs in the path or the parameters of a process' binary: e.g. `

  • ps aux | grep php5 will match /usr/share/php5/i-am-a-perl-script.pl
  • but pgrep php5 won't

Take an example from my system -- only we'll use python instead of php5:

  • ps aux | grep python gives us:
izx       2348  0.0  0.7 514928 15644 ?        Sl   Jun24   0:00 /usr/bin/python /usr/lib/unity-lens-video/unity-lens-video
izx       2444  0.0  0.9 547392 18864 ?        Sl   Jun24   0:01 /usr/bin/python /usr/lib/unity-scope-video-remote/unity-scope-video-remote
root      2805  0.0  0.5  95436 12204 ?        S    Jun24   0:00 /usr/bin/python /usr/lib/system-service/system-service-d
izx       6272  0.0  2.9 664400 60320 ?        SNl  Jun24   1:16 /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/update-manager --no-focus-on-map
root     11729  0.0  0.9 180508 19516 ?        S    Jun25   0:00 python /usr/lib/software-properties/software-properties-dbus
  • But pgrep python returns only 11729, which you'll see from the above list is:
root     11729  0.0  0.9 180508 19516 ?        S    Jun25   0:00 python /usr/lib/software-properties/software-properties-dbus

diff <(ps aux|grep x) <(pgrep x) # :)

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