Parse the output of `ps aux` into a list of dictionaries representing the parsed process information from each row of the output.

parse_ps_aux.py

#!/usr/bin/python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

import pprint
import subprocess


def get_processes():
    """
    Parse the output of `ps aux` into a list of dictionaries representing the parsed 
    process information from each row of the output. Keys are mapped to column names,
    parsed from the first line of the process' output.

    :rtype: list[dict]
    :returns: List of dictionaries, each representing a parsed row from the command output
    """
    output = subprocess.Popen(['ps', 'aux'], stdout=subprocess.PIPE).stdout.readlines()
    headers = [h for h in ' '.join(output[0].strip().split()).split() if h]
    raw_data = map(lambda s: s.strip().split(None, len(headers) - 1), output[1:])
    return [dict(zip(headers, r)) for r in raw_data]


pprint.pprint(get_processes())

Example output:

[{
  '%CPU': '6.2',
  '%MEM': '0.0',
  'COMMAND': '/opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Resources/Python.app/Contents/MacOS/Python tester.py',
  'PID': '62826',
  'RSS': '5284',
  'STARTED': '10:34AM',
  'STAT': 'S+',
  'TIME': '0:00.03',
  'TT': 's000',
  'USER': 'jdoe',
  'VSZ': '2468628'
},
{
  '%CPU': '5.9',
  '%MEM': '0.4',
  'COMMAND': '/Applications/iTerm.app/Contents/MacOS/iTerm2',
  'PID': '61467',
  'RSS': '61248',
  'STARTED': '9:23AM',
  'STAT': 'S',
  'TIME': '0:13.82',
  'TT': '??',
  'USER': 'jdoe',
  'VSZ': '2677452'
},
...
]

thanks

cool, saved me from trying to get psutil to compile on an unsupported old os..

In python3, output need to decode:
output = [i.decode('UTF-8') for i in output]