setpriority(2freebsd)

getpriority, setpriority - get/set program scheduling priority

.Lb libc

.In sys/time.h
.In sys/resource.h int getpriority int which int who int setpriority int which int who int prio

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.

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 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.

[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.

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

The getpriority system call appeared in BSD 4.2 .