Get Process Detail

The other day I posted a snippet of code that I as using to monitor process memory utilization for a few web browsers. I thought the information and technique were useful enough to modularize in the form of a function. Perhaps I want to check working set on a different process or even on a different computer. This is what I came up with.

I created a function called Get-ProcessWS. That's awkard to type so you might consider adding an alias like gpws.

[cc lang="PowerShell"]
Function Get-ProcessWS {

[cmdletbinding()]
Param (
[Parameter(Position=0,Mandatory=$True,HelpMessage="Enter a process name",
ValueFromPipeline=$True,ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$True)]
[string[]]$Name,
[ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]
[string]$Computername=$env:Computername
)

Begin {
Write-Verbose "$(Get-Date) Starting $($myinvocation.command)"
} #begin

Process {
Foreach ($item in $Name) {
Write-Verbose "$(Get-Date) Checking $Item on $Computername"

#see if the process is running
$process=Get-Process -Name $Item -ComputerName $Computername -ea "silentlycontinue"

#only process if we got a process back
if ($process)
{
#get the earliest start time
$started= $process | Sort-Object -property StartTime | Select-Object -first 1
$measure=$process | Measure-Object -Property workingset -sum
#divide by 1MB
$ws=$measure.sum/1mb
#count the number of processes
$count=($process | Measure-Object).Count
#create a custom object
New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property @{
Name=$Item
WorkingSet=$ws
Report=Get-Date
Started=$started.StartTime
Elapsed=(Get-Date)-($Started.StartTime)
Computername=$Computername
Count=$Count
}
} #if
else
{
Write-Verbose "$(Get-Date) Process not found"
}
} #foreach
} #Process

End {
Write-Verbose "$(Get-Date) Ending $($myinvocation.command)"
} #end

} #end function
[/cc]

The function takes one or more process names and attempts to retrieve those processes on the specified computer. The default is the localhost.

[cc lang="PowerShell"]
$process=Get-Process -Name $Item -ComputerName $Computername -ea "silentlycontinue"
[/cc]

I'm suppressing any exceptions that will occur if the process is not running. Assuming the process is found, the function retrieves and calculates some values.

[cc lang="PowerShell"]
if ($process)
{
#get the earliest start time
$started= $process | Sort-Object -property StartTime | Select-Object -first 1
$measure=$process | Measure-Object -Property workingset -sum
#divide by 1MB
$ws=$measure.sum/1mb
#count the number of processes
$count=($process | Measure-Object).Count
[/cc]

The function then writes a custom object to the pipeline. I've added a few items from my original code such as the computer name and the number of processes.

[cc lang="PowerShell"]
#create a custom object
New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property @{
Name=$Item
WorkingSet=$ws
Report=Get-Date
Started=$started.StartTime
Elapsed=(Get-Date)-($Started.StartTime)
Computername=$Computername
Count=$Count
}
[/cc]

The end result is an object like this:

[cc lang="DOS"]
Name : chrome
WorkingSet : 284.33203125
Elapsed : 14:18:14.5739805
Report : 5/12/2011 8:29:27 AM
Computername : SERENITY
Count : 9
Started : 5/11/2011 6:11:12 PM
[/cc]

You can pass process names as an array or pipe names to the function. The function writes to the pipeline so you can sort,convert, export, save to a file or whatever.

Download Get-ProcessWS.

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