Top Commands

Internal Top Commands

When the top session is running, you can run internal top commands to control the display mode of processes.

Table 1 describes the internal commands.

**Table 1** Internal top commands
No.	Command	Function
1	s	Change the image update frequency.
2	l	Show or hide the first line for the top information in the first part of the top command output.
3	t	Show or hide the second line for tasks and the third line for CPUs in the first part of the top command output.
4	m	Show or hide the fourth line for Mem and the fifth line for Swap in the first part of the top command output.
5	N	Sort processes by PID in ascending or descending order.
6	P	Sort processes by CPU usage in ascending or descending order.
7	M	Sort processes by memory usage in ascending or descending order.
8	h	Display help information.
9	q	Exit the top session.
10	n	Set the number of processes displayed in the process list.
11	s	Change the image update period.

Other Columns of the Top Command

By default, only the important PID, USER, PR, NI, VIRT, RES, SHR, S, %CPU, %MEM, TIME+, and COMMAND columns are displayed. You can use the following shortcut keys to change the displayed content.

After you press f, the column list is displayed. Press a to z to display or hide the corresponding column. Then press Enter.
Press o to change the display sequence of the selected columns. Press a to z to move the corresponding column to the right, and press A to Z to move the corresponding column to the left. Then press Enter.
Press F or O, and then press a to z to sort the processes by the corresponding columns. Press R to reverse the sorting.

Table 2 describes the common top commands and their functions.

**Table 2** Common commands and their functions
No.	Command	Function
1	PID	Process ID.
2	PPID	Parent process ID.
3	RUSER	Real user name
4	UID	User ID of the process owner.
5	USER	User name of the process owner.
6	GROUP	Group name of the process owner.
7	TTY	Name of the terminal where the process is started. If the process is not started from a terminal, a question mark (?) is displayed.
8	PR	Priority.
9	NI	Nice value: A negative value indicates a high priority and a positive value indicates a low priority.
10	P	Last used CPU. This command is valid only in a multi-CPU environment.
11	%CPU	CPU usage since the latest update.
12	TIME	Total time of CPUs being used by the process, in seconds.
13	TIME+	Total time of CPUs being used by the process, in centiseconds.
14	%MEM	Percentage of the physical memory occupied by the process.
15	VIRT	Total virtual memory used by the process, in KB. VIRT=SWAP+RES
16	SWAP	Swapped-out size of the virtual memory used by the process, in KB.
17	RES	Non-swapped-out size of the physical memory used by the process, in KB. RES=CODE+DATA
18	CODE	Physical memory occupied by executable code, in KB.
19	DATA	Physical memory occupied by non-executable code (data segments + stacks), in KB.
20	SHR	Shared memory, in KB.
21	nFLT	Number of page errors.
22	nDRT	Number of pages that have been modified since the last write.
23	S	Process status. D: The process is in unstoppable sleep state. R: running. S: sleep. T: trace/stop. Z: zombie process.
24	COMMAND	Command name or command line.
25	WCHAN	If the process is sleeping, the name of the sleeping system function is displayed.
26	Flags	Task flag.

Parent topic: Command Reference