how do I get the process list in Python?

Question

How do I get a process list of all running processes from Python, on Unix, containing then name of the command/process and process id, so I can filter and kill processes.

Answer 1

On linux, the easiest solution is probably to use the external ps command:

>>> import os
>>> data = [(int(p), c) for p, c in [x.rstrip('\n').split(' ', 1) \
...        for x in os.popen('ps h -eo pid:1,command')]]

On other systems you might have to change the options to ps.

Still, you might want to run man on pgrep and pkill.