Can you explain the purpose and how the 'ps' command works in an operating system?

The ps command in Unix/Linux operating systems is used to display a list of running processes. It allows you to see information about processes, such as their identifiers (PID), status, runtime, resources used, and the command that started them.

How it works: ps reads data from the system process tables and displays it in a human-readable format. It is often used with options, for example:

• ps aux — shows all processes of all users with detailed information.
• ps -ef — an alternative output format.

Example:

$ ps aux | grep python
user    1234  0.0  1.2  23456  1234 pts/0    S+   10:00   0:00 python script.py

Here, it shows that a Python process with PID 1234 is running.