bash pgrep weird command output

Question

I have following in my script

ACTIVE="$(pgrep -a crawl | wc -l)"
echo $ACTIVE
pgrep -a crawl | wc -l

echo is giving me 3, and last line is giving me 2.

Does anyone knows why?

Thank you

This happens consistently? You can run this more than once in a row and get those results each time? This isn't just a temporary process that died/finished between the two calls in whatever run of this you saw it? — Etan Reisner
– Etan Reisner, Commented Dec 3, 2014 at 14:44

pjh · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-03 16:01:42Z

1

I assume that the script is called 'crawl'. In that case, the higher number in $ACTIVE is due to the additional process that runs the command inside $(...). I'd expect the numbers to be 2 and 1 instead of 3 and 2 though. There must be another process called 'crawl' on the system when the script is running.

answered Dec 3, 2014 at 16:01

pjh

8,4332 gold badges20 silver badges21 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

bash pgrep weird command output

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related