Linux/Unix command to determine if process is running?

Question

I need a platform independent (Linux/Unix|OSX) shell/bash command that will determine if a specific process is running. e.g. mysqld, httpd... What

Answer 1

Just a minor addition: if you add the -c flag to ps, you don't need to remove the line containing the grep process with grep -v afterwards. I.e.

ps acux | grep cron

is all the typing you'll need on a bsd-ish system (this includes MacOSX) You can leave the -u away if you need less information.

On a system where the genetics of the native ps command point back to SysV, you'd use

ps -e |grep cron

or

ps -el |grep cron 

for a listing containing more than just pid and process name. Of course you could select the specific fields to print out using the -o option.