#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

sub is_running {
    my $process = shift;    # name of process
    my @p = grep { !/grep/ } `ps aux | grep $process`;
			    # ps aux without the greps
    print @p;		    # comment this out
    return scalar @p;	    # false if @p is empty; true otherwise
}

# test program
foreach (qw(httpd sshd syslogd telnetd ftpd yourmama)) {
    printf("$_ %s running.\n", (is_running($_) ? "is" : "is not"));
}