NICE(3) Library Functions Manual NICE(3)

nice — set program scheduling priority

Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

#include <unistd.h>

int
nice(int incr);

This interface is obsoleted by setpriority(2).

The () function obtains the scheduling priority of the process from the system and sets it to the priority value specified in incr. The priority is a value in the range -20 to 20. The default priority is 0; lower priorities cause more favorable scheduling. Only the super-user may lower priorities.

Children inherit the priority of their parent processes via fork(2).

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

A nice() syscall appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX.

June 4, 1993 macOS 15.2