From: Jun Young Kim <jykim@...>
Date: 2009-03-24T16:51:43+09:00
Subject: get process id by using it's name.

Hi, folks.

first )
I have a question to get a process id by using it's name for all  
platforms.

second)
If I want to kill some processes by it's name, are there efficient way  
to do it for all platform?
For a solution for this problem, I am now using the following way ;)

ex)

lines = $x{ ps -Au${ENV['USER']} }.split("\r?\n")

lines.each do |line|
	if line.match(process_name)
		pids << line.strip.split[0]
	end
end

count = 0
pids.each do |pid|
	%x{ kill #{pid} }
	
	count += 1 if $?.existstatus.zero?
end

print "total terminated processes : %d" % count

but, this way depends on only unix platforms.
moreover, I am not sure that all platform's output of "ps -Au" are same.