TOP(1) BSD General Commands Manual TOP(1)
NAME
top -- display and update sorted information about processes
SYNOPSIS
top [-a | -d | -e | -c mode]
[-F | -f]
[-h]
[-i interval]
[-l samples]
[-ncols columns]
[-o key | -O skey]
[-R | -r]
[-S]
[-s delay-secs]
[-n nprocs]
[-stats keys]
[-pid processid]
[-user username]
[-U username]
[-u]
DESCRIPTION
The top program periodically displays a sorted list of system processes. The default sorting key is pid, but other keys can be used instead.
Various output options are available.
OPTIONS
Command line option specifications are processed from left to right. Options can be specified more than once. If conflicting options are
specified, later specifications override earlier ones. This makes it viable to create a shell alias for top with preferred defaults speci-
fied, then override those preferred defaults as desired on the command line.
-a Equivalent to Fl c Ar a .
-c mode
Set event counting mode to mode. The supported modes are
a Accumulative mode. Count events cumulatively, starting at the launch of top. Calculate CPU usage and CPU time since the
launch of top.
d Delta mode. Count events relative to the previous sample. Calculate CPU usage since the previous sample. This mode by
default disables the memory object map reporting. The memory object map reporting may be re-enabled with the -r option or
the interactive r command.
e Absolute mode. Count events using absolute counters.
n Non-event mode (default). Calculate CPU usage since the previous sample.
-d Equivalent to -c d.
-e Equivalent to -c e.
-F Do not calculate statistics on shared libraries, also known as frameworks.
-f Calculate statistics on shared libraries, also known as frameworks (default).
-h Print command line usage information and exit.
-i interval
Update framework (-f) info every interval samples; see the PERFORMANCE/ACCURACY TRADEOFF section for more details.
-l samples
Use logging mode and display samples samples, even if standard output is a terminal. 0 is treated as infinity. Rather than redis-
playing, output is periodically printed in raw form. Note that the first sample displayed will have an invalid %CPU displayed for
each process, as it is calculated using the delta between samples.
-ncols columns
Display columns when using logging mode. The default is infinite. The number must be >0 or an error will occur.
-n nprocs
Only display up to nprocs processes.
-O skey
Use skey as a secondary key when ordering the process display. See -o for key names (pid is the default).
-o key Order the process display by sorting on key in descending order. A + or - can be prefixed to the key name to specify ascending or
descending order, respectively. The supported keys are:
pid Process ID (default).
command
Command name.
cpu CPU usage.
cpu_me CPU time charged to me by other processes.
cpu_others
CPU time charged to other processes by me.
csw The number of context switches.
time Execution time.
threads
alias: th
Number of threads (total/running).
ports alias: prt
Number of Mach ports.
mregion
alias: mreg, reg
Number of memory regions.
mem Physical memory footprint of the process.
rprvt Resident private address space size.
purg Purgeable memory size.
vsize Total memory size.
vprvt Private address space size.
kprvt Private kernel memory size.
kshrd Shared kernel memory size.
pgrp Process group ID.
ppid Parent process ID.
state alias: pstate
Process state.
uid User ID.
wq alias: #wq, workqueue
The workqueue total/running.
faults alias: fault
The number of page faults.
cow alias: cow_faults
The copy-on-write faults.
user alias: username
Username.
msgsent
Total number of Mach messages sent.
msgrecv
Total number of Mach messages received.
sysbsd Total BSD syscalls.
sysmach
Total Mach syscalls.
pageins
Total pageins.
boosts The number of boosts help by the process. This is followed by the number of times the process has transitioned from
unboosted to boosted in brackets. An asterisk before the value indicates that the process was able to send boosts at some
point since the previous update. For more information about boosts, see xpc_transaction_begin(3).
instrs The number of instructions retired by the process in both user space and the kernel.
cycles The number of cycles spent executing instructions in the process in both user space and the kernel.
-R Do not traverse and report the memory object map for each process (default).
-r Traverse and report the memory object map for each process.
-S Display the global statistics for swap and purgeable memory.
-s delay-secs
Set the delay between updates to delay-secs seconds. The default delay between updates is 1 second.
-stats keys
Only display the comma separated statistics. See the -o flag for the valid keys.
-pid processid
Only display processid in top. This option may be specified multiple times.
-user user
Only display processes owned by user
-U user
This is an alias for -user.
-u This is an alas equivalent to: -o cpu -O time
DISPLAY
The first several lines of the top display show various global state. All of the information is labeled. Following is an alphabetical list
of global state fields and their descriptions.
CPU Percentage of processor usage, broken into user, system, and idle components. The time period for which these percentages are
calculated depends on the event counting mode.
Disks Number and total size of disk reads and writes.
LoadAvg Load average over 1, 5, and 15 minutes. The load average is the average number of jobs in the run queue.
MemRegions Number and total size of memory regions, and total size of memory regions broken into private (broken into non-library and
library) and shared components.
Networks Number and total size of input and output network packets.
PhysMem Physical memory usage, broken into wired, active, inactive, used, and free components.
Procs Total number of processes and number of processes in each process state.
SharedLibs Resident sizes of code and data segments, and link editor memory usage.
Threads Number of threads.
Time Time, in H:MM:SS format. When running in logging mode, Time is in YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS format by default, but may be overridden
with accumulative mode. When running in accumulative event counting mode, the Time is in HH:MM:SS since the beginning of the top
process.
VirtMem Total virtual memory, virtual memory consumed by shared libraries, and number of pageins and pageouts.
Swap Swap usage: total size of swap areas, amount of swap space in use and amount of swap space available.
Purgeable Number of pages purged and number of pages currently purgeable.
Below the global state fields, a list of processes is displayed. The fields that are displayed depend on the options that are set. The pid
field displays the following for the architecture:
+ for 64-bit native architecture, or - for 32-bit native architecture, or * for a non-native architecture.
INTERACTION
When top is run in interactive (non-logging) mode, it is possible to control the output of top, as well as interactively send signals to pro-
cesses. The interactive command syntax is terse. Each command is one character, followed by 0 to 2 arguments. Commands that take arguments
prompt interactively for the arguments, and where applicable, the default value is shown in square brackets. The default value can be
selected by leaving the input field blank and pressing enter. ^G escapes the interactive argument prompt, and has the same effect as leaving
the input field blank and pressing enter.
The following commands are supported:
? Display the help screen. Any character exits help screen mode. This command always works, even in the middle of a command.
^L Redraw the screen.
cmode Set output mode to mode. See the -c option for descriptions of the allowed modes.
Oskey Use skey as a secondary key when ordering the process display. See the -o option for key names.
okey Order the process display by sorting on key in descending order. A + or - can be prefixed to the key name to specify ascending or
descending order, respectively. The supported keys and alises are listed with the -o option above.
q Quit.
r Toggle traversal and reporting of the memory object map for each process.
Ssignalpid
Send signal signal to pid. signal can be specified either as a number or as a name (for example, HUP). The default signal starts
out as TERM. Each time a signal is successfully sent, the default signal is updated to be that signal. pid is a process id.
s delay-secs
Set the delay between updates to delay-secs seconds.
U user Only display processes owned by user. Either the username or uid number can be specified. To display all processes, press enter
without entering a username or uid number.
PERFORMANCE
/ACCURACY TRADEOFF
Calculating detailed memory statistics is fundamentally resource-intensive. To reduce the CPU usage in top, the -i option has been intro-
duced to allow the user to tune this tradeoff. With the default value of 10, framework stats will be updated once every 10 samples. Speci-
fying -i 1 will result in the most accurate display, at the expense of system resources.
NOT AVAILABLE
When N/A occurs in a stat, it's caused by the memory object map reporting being disabled. Memory object map reporting is disabled by default
in delta mode, but may be optionally enabled via -r or the interactive r command. To enable the -r option, use it after any -c mode options.
EXAMPLES
top -o cpu -O +rsize -s 5 -n 20
Sort the processes according to CPU usage (descending) and resident memory size (ascending), sample and update the display at 5 sec-
ond intervals, and limit the display to 20 processes.
top -c d
Run top in delta mode.
top -stats pid,command,cpu,th,pstate,time
Display only the specified statistics, regardless of any growth of the terminal. If the terminal is too small, only the statistics
that fit will be displayed.
SEE ALSO
kill(2), vm_stat(1), signal(3), vmmap(1)
Darwin 13 March 2017 Darwin