How to get filename of an open file descriptor

[Robert Watson]

On Wed, 14 Nov 2007, Skip Ford wrote:

>> I agree regarding the duplication with ps(1) -- however, I'm generally of 
>> the opinion that ps(1) is overburdened as tools go, and that the goals are 
>> actually somehwat different--procstat(1) intentionally doesn't have the 
>> ability to generate a list of processes, for example, taking pids 
>> explicitly as the argument; likewise, historically ps(1) has not been 
>> interested in printing more than one line per process (although I think -h 
>> changed this). I'll do a bit more investigation as to how easily it can be 
>> wedged in, and do recognize the concern here.
>
> I understand, and I sort of knew that from the beginning which is why I 
> didn't provide feedback immediately.  I don't have a suggestion as to what I 
> think should be done.
>
> While procstat(1) currently takes a list of pids, I wouldn't be surprised if 
> somebody adds code to list all processes, unless you block it.  I think it 
> would be useful, especially since some of it's options produce single-line 
> per pid output, such as credentials.
>
> The two utilities do provide different information, it's just a little odd 
> to have two utilities with basically the same name.  But I can't think of a 
> more appropriate name for procstat(1).

FWIW, it looks like on Solaris, there are a series of psig(1), pstack(1), 
ptree(1), etc, tools for similar sorts of per-process inspection purposes.  I 
think I prefer bundling it into a single tool, but it's certainly a similar 
idea.  Maybe I should just rename procstat(1) to pinfo(1) and be done with it?

Robert N M Watson
Computer Laboratory
University of Cambridge