Extensible Scheduling (The GNU C Library)

#### 23.3.4 Extensible Scheduling ¶

The type `struct sched_attr` and the functions `sched_setattr` and `sched_getattr` are used to implement scheduling policies with multiple parameters (not just priority and niceness).

It is expected that these interfaces will be compatible with all future scheduling policies.

For additional information about scheduling policies, consult the manual pages sched(7) See Linux (The Linux Kernel) and sched_setattr(2) See Linux (The Linux Kernel).

Note: Calling the `sched_setattr` function is incompatible with support for `PTHREAD_PRIO_PROTECT` mutexes.

Data Type: struct sched_attr ¶

  The `sched_attr` structure describes a parameterized scheduling policy.

  Portability note: In the future, additional fields can be added to `struct sched_attr` at the end, so that the size of this data type changes. Do not use it in places where this matters, such as structure fields in installed header files, where such a change could impact the application binary interface (ABI).

  The following generic fields are available.

  `size`

    The actually used size of the data structure. See the description of the functions `sched_setattr` and `sched_getattr` below how this field is used to support extension of `struct sched_attr` with more fields.

  `sched_policy`

    The scheduling policy. This field determines which fields in the structure are used, and how the `sched_flags` field is interpreted.

  `sched_flags`

    Scheduling flags associated with the scheduling policy.

  In addition to the generic fields, policy-specific fields are available. For additional information, consult the manual page sched_setattr(2) See Linux (The Linux Kernel).

Function: `int` sched_setattr `(pid_t tid, struct sched_attr *attr, unsigned int flags)` ¶

  | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | See POSIX Safety Concepts.

  This functions applies the scheduling policy described by `*attr` to the thread tid (the value zero denotes the current thread).

  It is recommended to initialize unused fields to zero, either using `memset`, or using a structure initializer. The `attr->size` field should be set to `sizeof (struct sched_attr)`, to inform the kernel of the structure version in use.

  The flags argument must be zero. Other values may become available in the future.

  On failure, `sched_setattr` returns -1 and sets `errno`. The following errors are related the way extensibility is handled.

  `E2BIG`

    A field in `*attr` has a non-zero value, but is unknown to the kernel. The application could try to apply a modified policy, where more fields are zero.

  `EINVAL`

    The policy in `attr->sched_policy` is unknown to the kernel, or flags are set in `attr->sched_flags` that the kernel does not know how to interpret. The application could try with fewer flags set, or a different scheduling policy.

    This error also occurs if attr is `NULL` or flags is not zero.

  `EPERM`

    The current thread is not sufficiently privileged to assign the policy, either because access to the policy is restricted in general, or because the current thread does not have the rights to change the scheduling policy of the thread tid.

  Other error codes depend on the scheduling policy.

Function: `int` sched_getattr `(pid_t tid, struct sched_attr *attr, unsigned int size, unsigned int flags)` ¶

  | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | See POSIX Safety Concepts.

  This function obtains the scheduling policy of the thread tid (zero denotes the current thread) and store it in `*attr`, which must have space for at least size bytes.

  The flags argument must be zero. Other values may become available in the future.

  Upon success, `attr->size` contains the size of the structure version used by the kernel. Fields with offsets greater or equal to `attr->size` may not be overwritten by the kernel. To obtain predictable values for unknown fields, use `memset` to set all size bytes to zero prior to calling `sched_getattr`.

  On failure, `sched_getattr` returns -1 and sets `errno`. If `errno` is `E2BIG`, this means that the buffer is not large large enough, and the application could retry with a larger buffer.