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I looked at the manpages and there is no -v or --version argument for pgrep or pkill. How can i get some info on the version?

I'm asking because on my version of Ubuntu man pgrep is giving me a different manual then on my server. Ideally I would install the same version on my machine too.

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  • 1
    Did you try -V ? :)
    – Valentin Bajrami
    Apr 17, 2014 at 10:36
  • that is the only one i didn't try, and it's not even listed in the manual!! aaargh... post it as a answer and i'll mark it as the solution :D
    – Gabriel
    Apr 17, 2014 at 10:37
  • It's not? What system are you on? It's documented quite clearly on my Debian. It's the penultimate option mentioned, just above -h.
    – terdon ♦
    Apr 17, 2014 at 10:48
  • @Gabriel glad you solved it. -V, --version is mentioned in the man pgrep or man pkill
    – Valentin Bajrami
    Apr 17, 2014 at 10:59
  • Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS ... output of pgrep -V is pgrep (procps version 3.2.8) and for real it's not listed in man pgrep you can find it here pastebin.com/WDpfsuJr
    – Gabriel
    Apr 17, 2014 at 10:59

2 Answers 2

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To get some version information, find pgrep in your PATH and run the command what. I get:

% what /usr/bin/pgrep
/usr/bin/pgrep
    PROGRAM:pkill  PROJECT:adv_cmds-149

Note that the program name is pkill. pkill and pgrep are hard links to the same binary on my system (OS X).

Explanation (from the manual):

NAME what -- show what versions of object modules were used to construct a file

DESCRIPTION what reads each file name and searches for sequences of the form "@(#)", as inserted by the source code control system. It prints the remainder of the string following this marker, up to a null character, newline, double quote, or "> character."

PS. pgrep does not accept the -v or -V flag on my system (OS X), so looking at version strings is the only option.

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    But where's the version string in the output you show? Also, what seems to be an OSX (BSD?) command, I can't find or install it on my Debian.
    – terdon ♦
    Apr 17, 2014 at 10:46
  • what is an ancient BSD command-- I remember it from literally over a decade ago. I didn't even know OS X had it until I tried. The code group and version is adv_cmds-149 -- obviously not the release tag you were looking for, but that's apparently not embedded in the OS X version.
    – alexis
    Apr 17, 2014 at 10:56
  • Huh, OK. But according to the man page, that would be the version the object modules were used to construct a file, not the version of the pgrep itself then but of the libraries used to compile it right?
    – terdon ♦
    Apr 17, 2014 at 10:59
  • Object modules (.o) are compiled code, typically C code. main() lives in an object module too. A program may link together several object modules, some of them from libraries. The version you see with -V must be defined in one of the object files too -- but it's made accessible from the command line.
    – alexis
    Apr 17, 2014 at 11:00
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You can get it by typing capital V instead of small v:

$ pgrep -V
pgrep from procps-ng 3.3.3
$ pkill -V
pkill from procps-ng 3.3.4
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  • weird thing is, it's not listed in man pgrep ...
    – Gabriel
    Apr 17, 2014 at 10:49
  • @Gabriel The beauty of Open Source, is you can actually add this to the manpage for that project if you are so inclined :)
    – David Wilkins
    Apr 17, 2014 at 16:18
  • i would do that if i knew how to do that :D maybe i'll look into it
    – Gabriel
    Apr 20, 2014 at 19:32
  • This does not work on macOS. /usr/bin/pgrep: illegal option -- V
    – John
    Jan 31, 2022 at 2:38

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