how to tell if PID is running in foreground or background

[GNUser]

I have a shell script that will sometimes be run from the terminal.
When it is run from the terminal, it needs to find out whether a certain PID is running in the background or in the foreground.

With GNU procps's  ps  that's easy because foreground processes have a + in the status column.
Alas, BusyBox's  ps  has a status column but does not provide this information (it does not have the handy + symbol).

Do any of you smart TCL folks know how to determine whether a PID is running in the foreground or background, using only BusyBox tools?

[Rich]

Hi GNUser
The  /proc  file system tells all:
http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man5/proc.5.html
Field number 8 in the  stat  file identifies the  foreground process group .....

Using this type of test:

Code: [Select]

[ $PID == `cat /proc/$PID/stat | cut -d ' ' -f8` ]appears to work.

Running the following:

Code: [Select]

tc@E310:~$ [ 20712 == `cat /proc/20712/stat | cut -d ' ' -f8` ]
tc@E310:~$ echo $?
0
tc@E310:~$ [ 20698 == `cat /proc/20698/stat | cut -d ' ' -f8` ]
tc@E310:~$ echo $?
1
tc@E310:~$20712  is a copy of  mc  running in the foreground.  20698  is a program I'm working on running in the background.

[GNUser]

Wow, Rich. That's beautiful.

Here's another one: Is there a generic way to find out if a certain PID is a virtual terminal (e.g., aterm, xterm, urxvt, mate-terminal, etc.)?

(I'm putting together something very special and these are the last missing pieces. I'll share it with you guys in a separate thread. )

[GNUser]

P.S. Never mind this second question. I discovered [ -t 1 ] which is close enough for what I need.
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/515778/how-does-a-program-know-if-stdout-is-connected-to-a-terminal-or-a-pipe

[Rich]

Hi GNUser
I just took a look at the  procps  source code:
https://gitlab.com/procps-ng/procps/-/blob/master/ps/output.c

and line number 817 states:

Code: [Select]

if(pp->pgrp == pp->tpgid)         outbuf[end++] = '+'; // in foreground process groupWhich means they are comparing the  process group ID  (field number 5), not the  PID  to field number 8.

So the proper test should probably look like this:

Code: [Select]

[ `cat /proc/$PID/stat | cut -d ' ' -f5` == `cat /proc/$PID/stat | cut -d ' ' -f8` ]Which returns  0  for foreground and  1  for background.

[GNUser]

That does seem more correct.
However, I tested what you suggested before several times and it works as intended.
I guess when a process is the process group leader, its PID will be the same as the process group ID.

[Rich]

Hi GNUser
Since it appears that a  PID  and a  process group ID  don't have to match, I  felt I should correct my answer. After all, someone
may come across this at a later date, and that distinction may be important to them.