NICE(1)

NAME

     nice -- execute a utility at an altered scheduling priority

SYNOPSIS

     nice [-n increment] utility [argument ...]

DESCRIPTION

     The nice utility runs utility at an altered scheduling priority, by
     incrementing its ``nice'' value by the specified increment, or a default
     value of 10.  The lower the nice value of a process, the higher its
     scheduling priority.

     The superuser may specify a negative increment in order to run a utility
     with a higher scheduling priority.

     Some shells may provide a builtin nice command which is similar or iden-
     tical to this utility.  Consult the builtin(1) manual page.

ENVIRONMENT

     The PATH environment variable is used to locate the requested utility if
     the name contains no `/' characters.

EXAMPLES

     Execute utility `date' at priority 5 assuming the priority of the shell
     is 0:

	   nice -n 5 date

     Execute utility `date' at priority -19 assuming the priority of the shell
     is 0 and you are the super-user:

	   nice -n 16 nice -n -35 date

DIAGNOSTICS

     If utility is invoked, the exit status of nice is the exit status of
     utility.

     An exit status of 126 indicates utility was found, but could not be exe-
     cuted.  An exit status of 127 indicates utility could not be found.

SEE ALSO

     builtin(1), csh(1), idprio(1), rtprio(1), getpriority(2), setpriority(2),
     renice(8)

COMPATIBILITY

     The traditional -increment option has been deprecated but is still sup-
     ported.

STANDARDS

     The nice utility conforms to IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (``POSIX.1'').

HISTORY

     A nice utility appeared in Version 4 AT&T UNIX.