how to get certain columns from ps aux

Question

Im using ps aux to ouput the top 10 processes on my computer sorted by memory. This is the command that I have:

ps aux --sort %mem --cols 100 |tail -10

This outputs something like

USER       PID %CPU %MEM    VSZ   RSS TTY      STAT START   TIME COMMAND
dmak1112  3564  0.0  1.2 831788 104588 ?       Sl   12:59   0:01 /opt/google/chrome/chrome --type=re
dmak1112  9227  7.6  1.4 843500 117664 ?       Sl   14:33   0:07 /opt/google/chrome/chrome --type=re
dmak1112  2656  1.7  1.5 1513096 122136 ?      Ssl  12:58   1:41 compiz
dmak1112  4425  0.1  1.5 852336 126496 ?       Sl   13:04   0:08 /opt/google/chrome/chrome --type=re
dmak1112  3420  0.9  2.3 932820 191284 ?       Sl   12:59   0:53 /opt/google/chrome/chrome --type=re
dmak1112  3270  1.4  2.3 1163332 193612 ?      Sl   12:59   1:25 /opt/google/chrome/chrome --type=gp
dmak1112  3166  5.3  2.9 1842800 241428 ?      SLl  12:59   5:10 /opt/google/chrome/chrome
dmak1112  3433  4.8  4.2 1095344 339992 ?      Sl   12:59   4:36 /opt/google/chrome/chrome --type=re
dmak1112  4322  0.4  5.1 1268008 419064 ?      Sl   13:03   0:27 /opt/google/chrome/chrome --type=re
mysql     1075  0.0 10.4 1899544 848092 ?      Ssl  12:58   0:03 /usr/sbin/mysqld

Is there any way I can get rid of some of the columns? I only want that User, pid, %mem and command.

Thanks!

Answer 1

aux is not actually a secret password to make ps let you in. It's a set of options specifying which processes (a and x) and fields (u) you want.

man ps describes those and other options you can use. In your case:

ps -eo user,pid,%mem,command --sort=%mem