Simple way to get parent process name?

[Ken Lareau <elessar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At my current job I compile a lot of various packages, and tend to log
my configuration, compilation and installation procedures for future
reference, using the 'script' command.  To keep myself from getting con-
fused as to whether I was in a 'script' process or not, I would have the
shell prompt change to something else while running 'script'.

In ksh, I'd found no easier way to do this other than:

  ppid() { /bin/ps -o ppid -p $1 | tail -1; };
  pname () { /bin/ps -o comm -p $1 | tail -1; };

for functions to get the PPID and the name, and then testing

  $(pname $(ppid $$))

to see if it was equal to 'script'.  For Solaris 5.4, the two previous
functions were even worse:

  ppid() { /bin/ps -lp $1 | tail -1 | tr -s ' ' | cut -c2- | cut -d' ' -f5; };
  pname() { /bin/ps -p $1 | tail -1 | tr -s ' ' | cut -c2- | cut -d' ' -f4; };

So my question is, now that I'm using zsh as my shell at work, is there
a simpler way to do this?  I know zsh has PPID, but I need the actual
process name as well.

Any suggestions?


Ken Lareau
elessar@xxxxxxxxxxx