Mac OSX，Bash，awk和负面看后面

Question

I want to find a particular process using awk:

ps aux|awk '/plugin-container.*Flash.*/'

Now it finds the process, but it includes itself in the results, because ps results include them as well. To prevent that, I am trying to use negative look behind as follows:

ps aux|awk '/(\?<!awk).*plugin-container.*Flash.*/'

But it does not work. Does awk support look behind? What am I doing wrong? Thanks

Answer 1

The common trick is to use

ps aux | grep '[p]lugin-container.*Flash.*'

The character class [p] prevents grep itself from being matched.

Answer 2

I don't know whether awk supports lookbehind, but I usually solve this problem with grep -v :

aix@aix:~$ ps aux | awk '/plugin-container.*Flash/' | grep -v awk

(Also, I'd normally use grep for the awk command above.)

Answer 3

I don't know if awk supports lookbehinds, but if, then the question mark at the start should not be escaped, a negative lookbehind starts (?<!

A question mark right after the opening bracket is the sign, that this group is not a capturing group, ie it has some special meaning.