# command memory footprint



## tessio (Nov 30, 2010)

Hello people,
How can I record the memory footprint of a command? 

Something like: `[file]memorynator[/file] grep '.*thing' big_file`

Thanks..


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## dandelion (Nov 30, 2010)

time(1)?
	
	



```
$ command time -l fgrep 'some thing' big_file_11G
      150.72 real         6.56 user         4.67 sys
      1612  maximum resident set size
       111  average shared memory size
      3953  average unshared data size
       127  average unshared stack size
       194  page reclaims
         0  page faults
         0  swaps
     80875  block input operations
         1  block output operations
         0  messages sent
         0  messages received
         0  signals received
      2378  voluntary context switches
      4917  involuntary context switches
```
_command_ part is important as many shells including sh(1) and tcsh(1) implement _time_ builtin which may or may not be compatible with /usr/bin/time.


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