Odd "ps" output

While trying to figure out when I started a particular process I noticed that the normal "ps aux" or "ps -eF" is not showing the actual start date, but - depending on how long the task is already running - the year. For example:

[02:09:36 root@lv1-cpq-bl-17 bin]# ps aux
USER       PID %CPU %MEM    VSZ   RSS TTY      STAT START   TIME COMMAND
root         1  0.0  0.0   1944   656 ?        Ss    2008   0:01 init [2]
root         2  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S     2008   0:00 [migration/0]
root         3  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        SN    2008   0:00 [ksoftirqd/0]
root         4  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S     2008   0:00 [events/0]
root         5  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S     2008   0:00 [khelper]
...
root      2851  0.0  3.9 1243532 40740 ?       Sl   Jan07   1:14 /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun/jre/bin/java
root      3521  0.1  4.4 1250100 45828 ?       Sl   Jan07   2:22 /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun/jre/bin/java
root      3629  0.0  4.1 1237900 42880 ?       Sl   Jan07   0:28 /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun/jre/bin/java
root      3799  0.1  5.9 1268268 61260 ?       Sl   Jan07   3:17 /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun/jre/bin/java
root     12274  0.0  0.0   3432   880 pts/4    R+   03:25   0:00 ps aux

So this varies from the time today when it was started, to a month/day combination all the way to just a year, because the process was started last year.

But when exactly?

Digging into the "man ps" details and using the "trial and error" approach I found out that a custom layout allows to get what I needed:

[root]# ps -e -o user,pid,pcpu,start,stime,time,vsz,rssize,ni,args
USER       PID %CPU  STARTED STIME     TIME    VSZ   RSS  NI COMMAND
root         1  0.0   Jul 01  2008 00:00:01   1944   656   0 init [2]
root         2  0.0   Jul 01  2008 00:00:00      0     0   - [migration/0]
root         3  0.0   Jul 01  2008 00:00:00      0     0  19 [ksoftirqd/0]
root         4  0.0   Jul 01  2008 00:00:00      0     0  -5 [events/0]
root         5  0.0   Jul 01  2008 00:00:00      0     0  -5 [khelper]
...
root      2851  0.0   Jan 07 Jan07 00:01:14 1243532 40740  0 /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun/jre/bin/java
root      3521  0.1   Jan 07 Jan07 00:02:22 1250100 45828  0 /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun/jre/bin/java
root      3629  0.0   Jan 07 Jan07 00:00:28 1237900 42880  0 /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun/jre/bin/java
root      3799  0.1   Jan 07 Jan07 00:03:17 1268268 61260  0 /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun/jre/bin/java
root     12275  0.0 03:25:38 03:25 00:00:00   3432   880   0 ps -e -o user,pid,pcpu,start,
stime,time,vsz,rssize,ni,args

The "start" format option resulting in the "STARTED" column above and is showing what I needed. Last thing would be I guess to set the "PS_FORMAT" environment variable if I needed this permanently.