The ps command: Process appearing even after application has been shut down

[ekatmcg]

Hi all,

I'm a computer programmer and I'm developing a cross platform java program but I'm very new to mac. In my code I need to check if a particular program is still running. In windows I use tasklist which will have the process belonging to this program listed if the program is open and not if its closed. I've been playing around with the ps command (which is supposed to be just like tasklist) but it still has the process in the list long after the program has been shut down.

Is there any command with will show me the running processes?

Thanks

Katie