If you forget which field is being sorted the <x> command can serve as a quick visual reminder.

For compatibility, this top supports most of the former top sort keys. Since this is primarily a service to former top users, these commands do not appear on any help screen.

command   sorted field                  supported
  A         start time (non-display)      No
  M         %MEM                          Yes
  N         PID                           Yes
  P         %CPU                          Yes
  T         TIME+                         Yes

Before using any of the following sort provisions, top suggests that you temporarily turn on column highlighting using the 'x' interactive command. That will help ensure that the actual sort environment matches your intent.

The following interactive commands will only be honored when the cur- rent sort field is visible. The sort field might not be visible because:

<<> :Move_Sort_Field_Left Moves the sort column to the left unless the current sort field is the first field being displayed.

<>> :Move_Sort_Field_Right Moves the sort column to the right unless the current sort field is the last field being displayed.

The following interactive commands will always be honored whether or not the current sort field is visible.

<F> or <O> :Select_Sort_Field These keys display a separate screen where you can change which field is used as the sort column.

If a field is selected which was not previously being displayed,
it  will  be forced On when you return to the top display.  How-
ever, depending upon your screen width and  the  order  of  your
fields, this sort field may not be displayable.

This  interactive command can be a convienent way to simply ver-
ify the current sort field, when running top with  column  high-
lighting turned Off.

<R> :Reverse/Normal_Sort_Field_toggle Using this interactive command you can alternate between high- to-low and low-to-high sorts.

>the output of top shows %WCPU and %CPU.
>what exactly is the difference between the two?
>i read man top. doesn't tell me.

%WCPU is a weighted average that includes past CPU time, but gives higher weight to recent activity. I think %CPU is just the percentage of CPU time used by the process since the previous display update.

>Also, how do i find out what is the
>memory limit that my program can use?
>is this configurable?

limit datasize

or

ulimit -d

The system administrator can configure the default, as well as the hard limit.

documented on: 08-11-99 18:01:58