What does a C process status mean in htop?

jrule picture jrule · Aug 27, 2013 · Viewed 19.2k times · Source

I am using htop on osx and I can't seem to find out what a 'C' status in the 'S' status column means for a process status.

What does a C process status mean in htop?

Answer

Homer6 picture Homer6 · Aug 27, 2013

Here are the different values that the s, stat and state output specifiers (header "STAT" or "S") will display to describe the state of a process:

  • D Uninterruptible sleep (usually IO)
  • R Running or runnable (on run queue)
  • S Interruptible sleep (waiting for an event to complete)
  • T Stopped, either by a job control signal or because it is being traced.
  • W Paging (not valid since the 2.6.xx kernel)
  • X Dead (should never be seen)
  • Z Defunct ("zombie") process, terminated but not reaped by its parent.

Source: man ps

I recently came across a second list:

  • R Running
  • S Sleeping in an interruptible wait
  • D Waiting in uninterruptible disk sleep
  • Z Zombie
  • T Stopped (on a signal) or (before Linux 2.6.33) trace stopped
  • t Tracing stop (Linux 2.6.33 onward)
  • W Paging (only before Linux 2.6.0)
  • X Dead (from Linux 2.6.0 onward)
  • x Dead (Linux 2.6.33 to 3.13 only)
  • K Wakekill (Linux 2.6.33 to 3.13 only)
  • W Waking (Linux 2.6.33 to 3.13 only)
  • P Parked (Linux 3.9 to 3.13 only)

http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man5/proc.5.html in the "/proc/[pid]/stat" section: