# PROCESS STATE CODES
Here are the different values that the s, stat and state output specifiers (header "STAT" or "S") will display to describe the state of a process.

CODE | Meaning
--- | ---
D | Uninterruptible sleep (usually IO)
R | Running or runnable (on run queue)
S | Interruptible sleep (waiting for an event to complete)
T | Stopped, either by a job control signal or because it is being traced.
W | paging (not valid since the 2.6.xx kernel)
X | dead (should never be seen)
Z | Defunct ("zombie") process, terminated but not reaped by its parent.

For BSD formats and when the stat keyword is used, additional characters may be displayed:

CODE | Meaning
--- | ---
< | high-priority (not nice to other users)
N | low-priority (nice to other users)
L | has pages locked into memory (for real-time and custom IO)
s | is a session leader
l | is multi-threaded (using CLONE_THREAD, like NPTL pthreads do)
+ | is in the foreground process group