go_pgrep: A PID Management Library in Go

Introduction

The go_pgrep library is a Go package that enables you to conveniently handle Linux process IDs (PIDs) and parent process IDs (PPIDs). Inspired by the Linux command pgrep, this package was developed out of the necessity to find and manage PIDs associated with a given PPID.

Often, when working with processes in Go, we encounter situations where killing a parent process does not terminate its child processes. For instance:

cmd, err := exec.Command("sh", "-c", "watch cat test.txt").Output()
// The command above creates a child process.
cmd.Process.Kill()  
// Killing the parent process does not terminate the child process.

To handle such cases, go_pgrep provides a set of functions that lets you manage processes more effectively.

Features

go_pgrep provides the following functions for managing processes:

• GetPidList: Retrieves all PIDs.
• GetPidToPPid: Retrieves PIDs associated with a given PPID.
• GetPidToCmd: Retrieves PIDs associated with a given command.
• SelfPid: Retrieves the PID of the current process.
• KillPidToPPid: Terminates processes associated with a given PPID.
• (process).Kill: Terminates a process.

Usage

Here's an example demonstrating how to use go_pgrep:

package main

import (
	"fmt"

	"github.com/Eric011025/go_pgrep/pgrep"
)

func main() {
  	// Get PID by PPID
	ppidList, err := pgrep.GetPidToPPid(1)
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	for _, ppidListItem := range ppidList {
    fmt.Println("PID: ", ppidListItem.Pid)
	}
  
  	// Kill PID by PPID
  	err = pgrep.KillPidToPPid(6684)
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
  
  	// Get PID by command
  	result, err := pgrep.GetPidToCmd("watch")
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	for _, value := range result {
		fmt.Println("PID: ", value.Pid)
    	// Kill the process
		value.Kill()
	}
  
  	// Get the current process's PID
  	selfPid, err := pgrep.SelfPid()
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
  	fmt.Println("Self PID: ", selfPid.Pid)
}

Contact

For any queries or suggestions, feel free to reach out to Eric Park at [email protected].