top(1) process name

[rihad]

Anton Berezin wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 18, 2007 at 05:07:17PM +0500, rihad wrote:
> 
>> This is probably a FAQ. Is there any way to set the process name of a 
>> running Perl program displayed in top(1)?
>>
>> $0 = 'candy';
>>
>> doesn't seem to affect it in any way (although it does change what ps 
>> displays).
> 
> I do not believe it is possible in modern FreeBSDs.  The top(1) utility uses
> kvm_getprocs(3), which guarantees that the ki_comm field will represent an
> unaltered original command name, so no amount of tinkering with
> setproctitle(3) or the contents of argv array will change that.
> 
> Accidentally, ps -c does the same.
> 
> If there is a way to do it, I will be happy to learn about it myself.
> 

I hacked it by hardlinking the desired name to perl:

# ln /root/candy /usr/local/bin/perl
# cat /path/to/my/perl/script
#!/root/candy
...


Good enough for me.