The Problem You would like to locate all purge processes that are running: ps aux | grep purge You'd specifically like to see the --dir= argument passed to each purge process. However, "ps aux" output is cluttered and the arguments are hard to locate with the human eye, especially if a lot of purge processes are running. The Solution Output the entire --dir= argument in bold text via grep's --color option. > ps aux|grep purge|grep --color -E '\-\-dir=[^ ]+' root 861 0.0 0.0 8040 1356 ? Ss 10:55 0:00 /bin/sh -c /usr/bin/nice /local/quantum/exec.sh --release-dir=/common/release --release-path=factory/purge -@- purge.pl --dir=/common/reporting --max-age='20 days' --max-uncompressed-age='10 days' --no-test --tee-path='/qnmlog/log/purge/reporting/$P' >/dev/null 2>&1 root 31061 0.0 0.0 8040 1352 ? Ss 16:00 0:00 /bin/sh -c /usr/bin/nice /local/quantum/exec.sh --release-d