nice(2) - Linux man page
Name
nice - change process prioritySynopsis
#include <unistd.h>int nice(int inc);
Description
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
SVr4, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001. 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.1-2001 specify that nice() should return the new nice value. However, the Linux syscall 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.
