Name

nice — change process priority

Synopsis

        #include <unistd.h>
int nice( int inc);
 
[Note] Note
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
nice():
_XOPEN_SOURCE || /* Since glibc 2.19:
*/ _DEFAULT_SOURCE || /* Glibc versions <= 2.19:
*/ _BSD_SOURCE || _SVID_SOURCE

DESCRIPTION

nice() adds inc to the nice value for the calling process. (A higher nice value means a low priority.) Only the superuser may specify a negative increment, or priority increase. The range for nice values is described in getpriority(2).

RETURN VALUE

On success, the new nice value is returned (but see NOTES below). On error, −1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately.

ERRORS

EPERM

The calling process attempted to increase its priority by supplying a negative inc but has insufficient privileges. Under Linux, the CAP_SYS_NICE capability is required. (But see the discussion of the RLIMIT_NICE resource limit in setrlimit(2).)

CONFORMING TO

POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, SVr4, 4.3BSD. However, the Linux and (g)libc (earlier than glibc 2.2.4) return value is nonstandard, see below. SVr4 documents an additional EINVAL error code.

NOTES

SUSv2 and POSIX.1 specify that nice() should return the new nice value. However, the Linux system call and the nice() library function provided in older versions of (g)libc (earlier than glibc 2.2.4) return 0 on success. The new nice value can be found using getpriority(2).

Since glibc 2.2.4, nice() is implemented as a library function that calls getpriority(2) to obtain the new nice value to be returned to the caller. With this implementation, a successful call can legitimately return −1. To reliably detect an error, set errno to 0 before the call, and check its value when nice() returns −1.

SEE ALSO

nice(1), renice(1), fork(2), getpriority(2), setpriority(2), capabilities(7), sched(7)

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 4.07 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man−pages/.


  Copyright (c) 1992 Drew Eckhardt <drewcs.colorado.edu>, March 28, 1992

%%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM)
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
preserved on all copies.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
permission notice identical to this one.

Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this
manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date.  The author(s) assume no
responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from
the use of the information contained herein.  The author(s) may not
have taken the same level of care in the production of this manual,
which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working
professionally.

Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by
the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work.
%%%LICENSE_END

Modified by Michael Haardt <michaelmoria.de>
Modified 1993-07-24 by Rik Faith <faithcs.unc.edu>
Modified 1996-11-04 by Eric S. Raymond <esrthyrsus.com>
Modified 2001-06-04 by aeb
Modified 2004-05-27 by Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpagesgmail.com>