[opensuse] Can I find the percent of cpu load for a process in a script?

Hi, Can I find the percent of cpu load for a process inside a script? At worst, I can find it out from "top", but I wonder if there is a more direct way. I'm looking at "/proc/21500/stat" or "/proc/21500/statm", but I have no idea what each value is, where are those virtual files documented. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.0 x86_64 at Telcontar)