top

top - Provide information about top processes on the system.

 top(1)                                                               top(1) NAME      top - display and update information about the top processes on the      system SYNOPSIS      top [-s time] [-d count] [-q] [-u] [-n number] DESCRIPTION      top displays the top processes on the system and periodically updates      the information.  Raw CPU percentage is used to rank the processes.    Options      top recognizes the following command-line options:           -s time     Set the delay between screen updates to time seconds.                       The default delay between updates is 5 seconds.           -d count    Show only count displays, then exit.  A display is                       considered to be one update of the screen.  This                       option is used to select the number of displays to be                       shown before the program exits.           -q          This option runs the top program at the same priority                       as if it is executed via a nice -20 command so that                       it will execute faster (see nice(1)).  This can be                       very useful in discovering any system problem when                       the system is very sluggish.  This option is                       accessibly only to users who have appropriate                       privileges.           -u          User ID (uid) numbers are displayed instead of                       usernames.  This improves execution speed by                       eliminating the additional time required to map uid                       numbers to user names.           -n number   Show only number processes per screen.  Note that                       this option is ignored if number is greater than the                       maximum number of processes that can be displayed per                       screen.    Screen-Control Commands      When displaying multiple-screen data, top recognizes the following      keyboard screen-control commands:           j           Display next screen if the current screen is not the                       last screen.           k           Display previous screen if the current screen is not                       the first screen.           t           Display the first (top) screen.    Program Termination      To exit the program and resume normal user activities, type q at any      time.    Display Description      Three general classes of information are displayed by top:           System Data:                The first few lines at the top of the display show general                information about the state of the system, including:                     -  System name and current time.                     -  Load averages in the last one, five, and fifteen                        minutes.                     -  Number of existing processes and the number of                        processes in each state (sleeping, waiting, running,                        starting, zombie, and stopped).                     -  Percentage of time spent in each of the processor                        states (user, nice, system, idle, interrupt and                        swapper) per processor on the system.                     -  Average value for each of the processor states (only                        on multi-processor systems). Memory Data      Includes virtual and real memory in use (with the amount of      memory considered "active" in parentheses) and the amount of      free memory. Process Data      Information about individual processes on the system.  When      process data cannot fit on a single screen, top divides the      data into two or more screens.  To view multiple-screen      data, use the j, k, and t commands described previously.      Note that the system- and memory-data displays are present      in each screen of multiple-screen process data.      Process data is displayed in a format similar to that used      by ps(1):           CPU         Processor number on which the process is                       executing (only on multi-processor                       systems).           TTY         Terminal interface used by the process.           PID         Process ID number.           USERNAME    Name of the owner of the process.  When the                       -u option is specified, the user ID (uid)                       is displayed instead of USERNAME.           PRI         Current priority of the process.           NI          Nice value ranging from -20 to +20.           SIZE        Total size of the process in kilobytes.                       This includes text, data, and stack.           RES         Resident size of the process in kilobytes.                       The resident size information is, at best,                       an approximate value.           STATE       Current state of the process.  The various                       states are sleep, wait, run, idl, zomb, or                       stop.           TIME        Number of system and CPU seconds the                       process has consumed.           %WCPU       Weighted CPU (central processing unit)                       percentage.           %CPU        Raw CPU percentage.  This field is used to                       sort the top processes.           COMMAND     Name of the command the process is                       currently running. EXAMPLES      top can be executed with or without command-line options.  To display      five screens of data at two-second intervals then automatically exit,      use:           top -s2 -d5 AUTHOR      top was developed by HP and William LeFebvre of Rice University.