Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook - Third Edition

How to do it...

Invoking the nice command with no arguments will report a task's current priority:

    $ cat nicetest.sh
    echo "my nice is `nice`"
    $ sh nicetest.sh
    my nice is 0

Invoking the nice command followed by another command name will run the second command with a niceness of 10–it will add 10 to the task's default priority:

    $ nice sh nicetest.sh
    my nice is 10

Invoking the nice command with a value before the command will run the command with a defined niceness:

    $ nice -15 sh nicetest.sh
    my nice is 15

Only a superuser can give a task a higher priority (lower priority number), by assigning a negative niceness value:

    # nice -adjustment=-15 nicetest.sh
    my nice is -15