linux - Getting pids from ps -ef |grep keyword

Question

I want to use ps -ef | grep "keyword" to determine the pid of a daemon process (there is a unique string in output of ps -ef in it).

I can kill the process with pkill keyword is there any command that returns the pid instead of killing it? (pidof or pgrep doesnt work)

Answer 1

You can use pgrep as long as you include the -f options. That makes pgrep match keywords in the whole command (including arguments) instead of just the process name.

pgrep -f keyword

From the man page:

-f       The pattern is normally only matched against the process name. When -f is set, the full command line is used.

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If you really want to avoid pgrep, try:

ps -ef | awk '/[k]eyword/{print $2}'

Note the [] around the first letter of the keyword. That's a useful trick to avoid matching the awk command itself.