NetBSD/usr.bin/nice/nice.1

.\"	$NetBSD: nice.1,v 1.12 2001/12/08 19:09:35 wiz Exp $
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.\"	@(#)nice.1	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
.\"
.Dd June 6, 1993
.Dt NICE 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm nice
.Nd execute a utility with an altered scheduling priority
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl n Ar increment
.Ar utility
.Op Ar argument ...
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm
runs
.Ar utility
at an altered scheduling priority.
If an
.Ar 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
.Ar 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.
.Pp
Available options:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Fl n Ar increment
A positive or negative decimal integer used to modify the system scheduling
priority of
.Ar utility .
.El
.Sh EXIT STATUS
The
.Nm
utility exits with one of the following values:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It 1-125
An error occurred in the
.Nm
utility.
.It 126
The
.Ar utility
was found but could not be invoked.
.It 127
The
.Ar utility
could not be found.
.El
.Pp
Otherwise, the exit status of
.Nm
will be that of
.Ar utility .
.Sh COMPATIBILITY
The historic
.Fl Ns Ar increment
option has been deprecated but is still supported in this implementation.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr csh 1 ,
.Xr getpriority 2 ,
.Xr setpriority 2 ,
.Xr renice 8
.Sh STANDARDS
The
.Nm
utility conforms to
.St -p1003.2-92 .
.Sh HISTORY
A
.Nm
utility appeared in
.At v6 .
.Sh BUGS
.Nm
is built into
.Xr csh  1
with a slightly different syntax than described here.  The form
.Ql nice +10
nices to positive nice, and
.Ql nice \-10
can be used
by the super-user to give a process more of the processor.