NAME

     getpriority, setpriority — get/set program scheduling priority

LIBRARY

     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS

     #include <sys/time.h>
     #include <sys/resource.h>

     int
     getpriority(int which, int who);

     int
     setpriority(int which, int who, int prio);

DESCRIPTION

     The scheduling priority of the process, process group, or user, as indicated by which and
     who is obtained with the getpriority() system call and set with the setpriority() system
     call.  The which argument is one of PRIO_PROCESS, PRIO_PGRP, or PRIO_USER, and who is
     interpreted relative to which (a process identifier for PRIO_PROCESS, process group
     identifier for PRIO_PGRP, and a user ID for PRIO_USER).  A zero value of who denotes the
     current process, process group, or user.  The prio argument is a value in the range -20 to
     20.  The default priority is 0; lower priorities cause more favorable scheduling.

     The getpriority() system call returns the highest priority (lowest numerical value) enjoyed
     by any of the specified processes.  The setpriority() system call sets the priorities of all
     of the specified processes to the specified value.  Only the super-user may lower
     priorities.

RETURN VALUES

     Since getpriority() can legitimately return the value -1, it is necessary to clear the
     external variable errno prior to the call, then check it afterward to determine if a -1 is
     an error or a legitimate value.

     The setpriority() function returns the value 0 if successful; otherwise the value -1 is
     returned and the global variable errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS

     The getpriority() and setpriority() system calls will fail if:

     [ESRCH]            No process was located using the which and who values specified.

     [EINVAL]           The which argument was not one of PRIO_PROCESS, PRIO_PGRP, or PRIO_USER.

     In addition to the errors indicated above, setpriority() will fail if:

     [EPERM]            A process was located, but neither its effective nor real user ID matched
                        the effective user ID of the caller.

     [EACCES]           A non super-user attempted to lower a process priority.

SEE ALSO

     nice(1), fork(2), renice(8)

HISTORY

     The getpriority() system call appeared in 4.2BSD.