NAME
nice —
execute a utility with an
altered scheduling priority
SYNOPSIS
nice |
[-n
increment] utility
[argument ...] |
DESCRIPTION
nice runs
utility at an altered
scheduling priority. If an
increment is given, it is
used; otherwise an increment of 10 is assumed. The super-user can run
utilities with priorities higher than normal by using a negative
increment. The priority can be adjusted over a range of
-20 (the highest) to 20 (the lowest). A priority of 19 or 20 will prevent a
process from taking any cycles from others at nice 0 or better.
Available options:
-
-
- -n
increment
- A positive or negative decimal integer used to modify the
system scheduling priority of utility.
EXIT STATUS
The
nice utility exits with one of the following values:
-
-
- 1-125
- An error occurred in the nice
utility.
-
-
- 126
- The utility was found but could not
be invoked.
-
-
- 127
- The utility could not be found.
Otherwise, the exit status of
nice will be that of
utility.
COMPATIBILITY
The historic
-increment option has been
deprecated but is still supported in this implementation.
SEE ALSO
csh(1),
getpriority(2),
setpriority(2),
renice(8)
STANDARDS
The
nice utility conforms to
IEEE Std
1003.2-1992 (“POSIX.2”).
HISTORY
A
nice utility appeared in
Version 6
AT&T UNIX.
BUGS
nice is built into
csh(1) with a slightly different
syntax than described here. The form ‘
nice
+10
’ nices to positive nice, and ‘
nice
-10
’ can be used by the super-user to give a process more of the
processor.