Bug #5878 ps xa | ... in mysqld_safe cut off at 52 chars on Red Hat 7.3
Submitted: 4 Oct 2004 14:51 Modified: 11 Jan 2005 21:18
Reporter: Matthew Lord
Status: Closed
Category:Server Severity:S3 (Non-critical)
Version:all OS:Linux (Red Hat Linux 7.3)
Assigned to: Jim Winstead Target Version:

[4 Oct 2004 14:51] Matthew Lord 
Description:
I think this may be a bug with procps version 2.0.7 which RedHat 7.3 uses but ps xa gets
cut off 
at 52 characters even though there is no controlling terminal.

I just want to know why we do not use ps xaww to be safe?  The problem is that we are 
eventually grepping for the port number or pid-file which gets cut off:

numofproces=`ps xa | grep -v "grep" | grep $ledir/$MYSQLD| grep -c
"port=$mysql_tcp_port"`
PROC=`ps xa | grep "$ledir/$MYSQLD\>" | grep -v "grep" | grep "pid-file=$pid_file" | sed
-n 
'$p'`

How to repeat:
Using RedHat 7.3 or procps version 2.0.7 on linux, issue both of these while mysqld is
running:

numofproces=`ps xa | grep -v "grep" | grep $ledir/$MYSQLD| grep -c
"port=$mysql_tcp_port"`
PROC=`ps xa | grep "$ledir/$MYSQLD\>" | grep -v "grep" | grep "pid-file=$pid_file" | sed
-n 
'$p'`

Suggested fix:
Use ps xaww unless there is a good reason not to.
[4 Jan 2005 1:54] Jim Winstead 
I tested against all of the Linux boxes we have around (this code is only used on Linux),
and 'ps 
xaww' behaves as expected. There may be an oddball Linux distribution that doesn't use
procps, 
and might not like this syntax, but it is more likely that it would not like 'ps xa' and
'ps xaww' 
than just 'ps xaww'. (For example, if it has a SysV-ish 'ps' command.)
[11 Jan 2005 21:18] Paul DuBois 
Mentioned in 4.1.9 change notes.