Easier strace of scripts with pidof -x

Here’s a one minute read, about a trick which I discovered today:

When running an strace, it’s common to do something like:

strace -p<pid>

Smarter hackers know that they can use some bash magic and do:

strace -p`pidof <process name>`

However, if you’re tracing a script named foo.py, this won’t work because the real process is the script’s interpreter, and pidof python, might return other unrelated python scripts.

strace -p`pidof foo.py` # won't work
[failure]
[user sifting through ps output for real pid]
[computer explodes]

The trick is to use the -x flag of pidof. This will let you pass in your script’s name, and pidof will take care of the rest:

strace -p`pidof -x foo.py` # works!
[user cheering]
[normal strace noise]

Awesome!

Happy hacking,

James

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October 26, 2013
187 words

• technical