A ``setproctitle`` implementation for Python
============================================

:author: Daniele Varrazzo

The library allows a process to change its title (as displayed by system tools
such as ``ps`` and ``top``).

The procedure is hardly portable across different systems.
A `good implementation`_ is provided by PostgreSQL_: this module is a wrapper
around it.

.. _good implementation: http://doxygen.postgresql.org/ps__status_8c-source.html
.. _PostgreSQL: http://www.postgresql.org


Installation
------------

You can use ``easy_install`` to install the module: to perform a system-wide
installation use::

    sudo easy_install setproctitle

If you are an unprivileged user or you want to limit installation to a local
environment, you can use the command::

    easy_install -d /target/path setproctitle

Notice that ``easy_install`` requires ``/target/path`` to be in your 
``PYTHONPATH``.


Module content
--------------

The module exports the following functions:

``setproctitle(title)``
    Set *title* as the title for the current process.


``getproctitle()``
    Return the current process title.


Module status
-------------

Albeit the core part of the code has been tested on a wild variety of
platforms, the compiling procedure for the Python module has currently been 
tested on GNU/Linux only.


Other known implementations and discussions
-------------------------------------------

- `procname`_: a module exposing the same functionality, but less portable 
  and not well packaged.
- `Issue 5672`_: where the introduction of such functionality into the stdlib
  is being discussed.

.. _procname: http://code.google.com/p/procname/
.. _Issue 5672: http://bugs.python.org/issue5672


..
    vim: set filetype=rst:

