grt@twitch.UUCP ( G.R.Tomasevich) (06/21/88)
People complained about 'ps' only showing the command name in square brackets instead of printing the arguments, too. This is because the environment is too big, though I am not sure what the limit is. Apparently the code is not smart enough or it is not possible to find the arguments on the stack (or its image in the swap) when the environment exceeds some size. You can actually see the arguments of a command. Write a test program that calls 'execle(2)' or 'execve(2)' with the environment pointer supplied as '(char**)0' and with some command and arguments. Have the program fork, have the parent sleep, have the child exec something that maybe sleeps. From another layer, do a 'ps' on the original layer, and you will see the child with its arguments. Or, start up a login with virtually no environment (but who ever works that way?). I tried this on 'twitch', a VAX running 5.2, but not yet on my UNIX PC. What is the fix? I dunno. -- George Tomasevich, att!twitch!grt AT&T Bell Laboratories, Holmdel, NJ