How to check CPU usage using Python?

Jonathan 28 Published: 09/09/2024

How to check CPU usage using Python?

To check CPU usage using Python, you can use the psutil library which is a cross-platform library for retrieving information on running processes and system utilization (CPU, memory, disks, networking, users, etc.) in Python.

Here's an example of how to do it:

import psutil
Get CPU timeslice usage

cpu_timeslice_usage = psutil.cpu_timeslice()


print(f"Timeslice usage: {cpu_timeslice_usage}%")

Get CPU core count

cpu_core_count = psutil.cpu_count(logical=False)


print(f"CPU core count: {cpu_core_count}")

Get CPU percent usage

cpu_percent_usage = psutil.cpu_percent(interval=1, percpu=True)


print(f"CPU percentage usage: {cpu_percent_usage}%")

The psutil library provides several ways to get CPU information:

cpu_timeslice(): Returns the CPU timeslice usage (0-100). cpu_core_count(logical=False): Returns the number of CPU cores available. The logical=False parameter means you're getting the physical core count, not the logical one (if there are hyper-threading or similar technologies involved). cpu_percent(interval=1, percpu=True): This method returns a tuple with four values: total CPU usage and usage for each of the available CPUs. You can specify the time interval (interval=1 in this case means 1 second).

Here's how you install psutil library:

pip install psutil

Note that psutil requires Python 3.5 or later, and is compatible with Windows, macOS and Linux.

Also note that on Unix-based systems (like Linux), you might need to run your script using sudo if the system doesn't have a graphical interface:

sudo python your_script.py

I hope this helps!

Python get CPU usage of process

Here's a Python solution to get the CPU usage of a process:

import psutil

import time

Get the process ID you want to monitor

process_id = 1234

Create an instance of Process class

p = psutil.Process(process_id)


while True:


try:

Get the CPU usage percentage

cpu_usage = p.cpu_percent()

Print the CPU usage

print(f"CPU Usage: {cpu_usage}%")

Sleep for 1 second before getting next CPU usage

time.sleep(1)


except psutil.NoSuchProcess:


print("Process not found!")


break


except KeyboardInterrupt:


print("nKeyboardInterrupt caught! Exiting...")


break

Here's how this code works:

We first import the psutil library, which provides a way to access information about running processes and system utilization metrics (such as CPU usage). We then create an instance of the Process class from psutil, passing in the process ID we're interested in monitoring. In the while loop, we call the cpu_percent() method on our process object. This method returns the CPU usage percentage of that process for the duration of its execution since the last time it was accessed by a call to cpu_percent(). If you want the total CPU usage since the process started, use cpu_percent(interval=None) with no interval argument. We print out the CPU usage percentage and then sleep for 1 second before getting next CPU usage. This can be adjusted based on how frequently you need the data. The code also includes exception handling to deal with scenarios where the specified process might not exist (e.g., if we mistakenly provide a non-existent ID) or when the user manually terminates the script while it's still running.

This code provides an effective way to monitor CPU usage of specific processes in real-time, and you can customize it according to your needs.

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