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kylejv1993 Author

Level 1

27 points

How does a "program" differ from a "process"?

In terms of identifying the names and ID's of each, what is the difference between a process and a program? For example, how might I find the exact name of a given program in order to view all of it's corresponding occurrences?

For example, using the ps command in terminal, if I were to run something like

ps -axc | grep -w program_name. * To view all of a single program's occurrences

How might I. determine the specific name of the parameter for program_name? Would it be In the activity monitor, because I never see the term "program" used in the activity monitor's detail?

MacBook Pro TouchBar and Touch ID, macOS High Sierra (10.13.1)

Posted on Dec 9, 2017 10:47 AM

Best reply

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Posted on Dec 9, 2017 10:59 AM

"Program" usually refers to the code. "Process" usually refers to the code that is running in the computer's memory. Sometimes the program code may generate multiple processes. Because Activity Monitor is monitoring the running code, it is referred to as a "process." In many instances, a "program name" is also a "process name." For example, the Dock is a program name that Activity Monitor shows as the process name, too.