# Convert ps elapsed time format for long running processes

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/convert-ps-elapsed-time-format-for-long-running-processes/29402>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [January 9, 2019, 12:25pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/convert-ps-elapsed-time-format-for-long-running-processes/29402 "2019-01-09T12:25:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Saravanan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Saravanan](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Saravanan)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2019, 12:25pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/convert-ps-elapsed-time-format-for-long-running-processes/29402/1 "2019-01-09T12:25:17Z")

</div>

```auto
I'm trying to capture the ps elapsed time format for long running Siteminder process from remote server using Ansible playbook. The output of elapsed time is in the format of [[dd-]hh:]mm:ss. Need help to convert this time into seconds. 

```

```auto

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Tchia04](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/fbc32d/32.png) [@Tchia04](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Tchia04)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2019, 2:35pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/convert-ps-elapsed-time-format-for-long-running-processes/29402/2 "2019-01-09T14:35:06Z")

</div>

This is not really an ansible question but rather a linux shell question.

You can get the elapsed time in seconds using this one line shell command

$ ps -p 50 -o etime= | sed ‘s/[:-]/ /g;’ | awk ‘{print $4" " $3" " $2" " $1" " }’| awk ‘{print $1+$2_60+$3_3600+$4\*86400}’  
685608

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Saravanan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Saravanan](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Saravanan)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2019, 12:47pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/convert-ps-elapsed-time-format-for-long-running-processes/29402/3 "2019-01-10T12:47:09Z")

</div>

Thanks a lot Tony.

I have updated the seconds conversion as below.  
$ ps -p 50 -o etime= | sed ‘s/[:-]/ /g;’ | awk ‘{print $4" " $3" " $2" " $1" " }’| awk ‘{print $1_86400+$2_3600+$3\*60+$4}’