NICE(1)NICE(1)NAMEnice - invoke a command with an altered scheduling priority
SYNOPSIS
/usr/bin/nice [-increment | -n increment] command
[argument]...
/usr/xpg4/bin/nice [-increment | -n increment] command
[argument]...
csh Builtin
nice [-increment | +increment] [command]
DESCRIPTION
The nice utility invokes command, requesting that it be run with a dif‐
ferent system scheduling priority. The priocntl(1) command is a more
general interface to scheduler functions.
The invoking process (generally the user's shell) must be in a schedul‐
ing class that supports nice.
If the C shell (see csh(1)) is used, the full path of the command must
be specified. Otherwise, the csh built-in version of nice will be
invoked. See csh Builtin below.
If nice executes commands with arguments, it uses the default shell
/usr/bin/sh (see sh(1)).
csh Builtin
nice is also a csh built-in command with behavior different from the
utility versions. See csh(1) for description.
OPTIONS
The following options are supported:
-increment | -n increment
increment is a positive or negative deci‐
mal integer that has the same effect on
the execution of the utility as if the
utility had called the nice() function
with the numeric value of the increment
option-argument. See nice(2). nice()
errors, other than EINVAL, are ignored. If
not specified, an increment of 10 is
assumed.
The super-user may run commands with pri‐
ority higher than normal by using a nega‐
tive increment such as -10. A negative
increment assigned by an unprivileged user
is ignored.
OPERANDS
The following operands are supported:
command
The name of a command that is to be invoked. If command
names any of the special built-in utilities (see
shell_builtins(1)), the results are undefined.
argument
Any string to be supplied as an argument when invoking com‐
mand.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables
that affect the execution of nice: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES,
PATH, and NLSPATH.
EXIT STATUS
If command is invoked, the exit status of nice will be the exit status
of command. Otherwise, nice will exit with one of the following values:
1-125
An error occurred.
126
command was found but could not be invoked.
127
command could not be found.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
/usr/bin/nice
┌───────────────┬─────────────────┐
│ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
├───────────────┼─────────────────┤
│CSI │ Enabled │
└───────────────┴─────────────────┘
/usr/xpg4/bin/nice
┌────────────────────┬─────────────────┐
│ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
├────────────────────┼─────────────────┤
│CSI │ Enabled │
├────────────────────┼─────────────────┤
│Interface Stability │ Standard │
└────────────────────┴─────────────────┘
SEE ALSOcsh(1), ksh(1), nohup(1), priocntl(1), sh(1), shell_builtins(1),
nice(2), attributes(5), environ(5), standards(5)
Jan 23, 2004 NICE(1)