6. `dump-acct`

dump-acct dumps some of the contents of one or more acct files in human readable form. Usage:

dump-acct [opts] files

Unless called with the --raw option, it prints a table with the following fields, separated by vertical bars(|):

ac_comm: name of the executed program
ac_version: version of the acct file format
ac_utime: user time
ac_stime: system time
ac_etime: elapsed time
ac_uid: user id
ac_gid: group id
ac_mem: (average) memory usage
ac_io: number of characters transferred on input/output
ac_pid: process id
ac_ppid: parent's process id

All times will be given in platform dependent units ("AHZ"). Not all of the above columns will actually appear, depending on what information your operating system provides in it's struct acct.

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6.1 Flags

--ahz hz: Use this flag to tell the program what AHZ should be (in Hertz). This option is useful if you are trying to view an acct file created on another machine which has a different value for AHZ.
--byteswap: Swap the bytes (relative to your system's native byte order) in --raw output.
--format: Set output format with --raw option.
-n num
--num num: Limit the number of lines (or records with --raw) to print.
-r
--reverse: Read the accounting file backwards (print latest record first).
-R
--raw: Don't print human readable output, dump the raw record instead. Useful to convert between different Linux file formats (see below).
-h
--help: Print dump-acct's usage string and default location of the accouning file to standard output.

--byteswap and --format options are only available with Linux multiformat support. They only affect output with the --raw option, format and byte order of the input are automatically detected. Thus they are useful to convert between different file formats.

The --ahz option affects input and output (except for v3 file format, which by definition is fixed to AHZ=100). If you ever need to convert between different AHZ values, use a two-step process: First convert to v3 format with the old AHZ value, then convert to the desired output format with the new AHZ setting.