Mac OS X Tiger in a Nutshell

Name

top

Synopsis

top [options] [number]

Full screen, dynamic display of global and per-process resource usage by descending PID order.

Options

number

top limits the total processes displayed to number.

-c mode

Display counts in the specified mode, which is one of the following:

a

Cumulative event counting mode. Counts are cumulative from top start time. -w and -k are superseded and ignored while -ca is in effect.

d

Delta event counting mode. Counts are deltas relative to a previous sample. -w and -k are superseded and ignored while -cd is in effect.

e

Absolute event counting mode. Counts are absolute values from process start times. -w and -k are superseded and ignored while -ce is in effect.

n

Non-event mode. CPU usage is calculated from previous sample.

-F

Don’t calculate on shared libraries. This greatly decreases top’s system load.

-l samples

Logging mode. Change display mode from periodic full screen updating to a sequential line mode output suitable for output redirection. The number of sequential snapshots is specified as samples.

-n num

Limit to showing top num processes.

-o order

Display processes sorted by order. If preceded by a plus or minus sign, sort in ascending or descending order, respectively.

command

Command name.

cpu

CPU usage.

pid

Process ID.

prt

Number of Mach ports.

reg

Number of memory regions.

rprvt

Resident private address space size.

rshrd

Resident shared address space size.

rsize

Resident memory size.

th

Number of threads.

time

Execution time.

uid

User ...