Python sort string array with subtring

Question

I have an array which contains the ouput of the "ps aux" command. My goal is to sort the array with the command name column but I have no idea how to do this and I can't manage to find an answer.

Here's my code so far

#!/usr/bin/python
import subprocess

ps = subprocess.Popen(['ps', 'aux'], stdout=subprocess.PIPE).communicate()[0]
processes = ps.split('\n')

nfields = len(processes[0].split()) - 1
for row in processes[1:]:
#    print row.split(None, nfields) //This is used to split all the value in the string
     print row

The output of this code snipet is something like

...
root        11  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<    2012   0:00 [kworker/1:0H]
root        12  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S     2012   0:00 [ksoftirqd/1]
root        13  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S     2012   0:00 [migration/2]

...

So my goal would have a similar output but sorted on the last column so in the end it would looks like this

...
root        13  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S     2012   0:00 [migration/2]
root        12  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S     2012   0:00 [ksoftirqd/1]
root        11  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<    2012   0:00 [kworker/1:0H]
...

Anyone of you have any clues on how to do this?

Instead of doing it in python, you could also take advantage of the sort command in the shell: ps aux | sort --key=10. Of course, this would not strip off the first row. For that, you'd need something like awk: ps aux | awk 'NR != 1 {print;}' | sort --key=10 — hughdbrown
– hughdbrown, Commented Jan 8, 2013 at 7:14

hughdbrown · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-08 06:31:59Z

2

Something like this:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import subprocess
from operator import itemgetter

ps = subprocess.Popen(['ps', 'aux'], stdout=subprocess.PIPE).communicate()[0]
processes = [p for p in ps.split('\n') if p]
split_processes = [p.split() for p in processes]

And then print out your results like this:

for row in sorted(split_processes[1:], key=itemgetter(10)):
    print " ".join(row)

or like this (if you want only the process name and arguments):

for row in sorted(split_processes[1:], key=itemgetter(10)):
    print " ".join(row[10:])

answered Jan 8, 2013 at 6:31

hughdbrown

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Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-08 06:03:12Z

2

sorted(..., key=lambda x: x.split()[10])

answered Jan 8, 2013 at 6:03

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams

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