#!/usr/bin/env perl use strict; use warnings; my (%ps_data, @defunct_processes); while () { next if $. == 1; # Skip header: 'PID PPID COMMAND' chomp; my ($pid, $ppid, $cmd) = split ' ', $_, 3; $ps_data{$pid} = [$ppid => $cmd]; push @defunct_processes, $pid if $cmd eq ''; } for my $pid (@defunct_processes) { my @trace; while ($pid >= 1) { push @trace, [$pid, @{$ps_data{$pid}}]; $pid = $ps_data{$pid}[0]; } printf "%4d %4d %s\n", @$_ for reverse @trace; } __DATA__ PID PPID COMMAND 0 0 sched 1 0 /sbin/init 7 0 vmtasks 105 1 /usr/lib/saf/sac 7184 1 /usr/bin/java 7222 1 /usr/lib/utmpd 7501 6223 /usr/sbin/nscd 7507 7184 /bin/sh 7508 7507 /usr/bin/perl 7510 5044 /usr/bin/grep 7512 4333 /usr/bin/egrep 7515 7508 sh 7516 7515