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Created March 17, 2020 08:07
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Meaning of process state codes (C column) on `ps` output
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process_state_codes.md

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
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