How to change the priority of a running java process?

Question

In a related question we explored using ProcessBuilder to start external processes in low priority using OS-dependant commands. I also discovered that if a parent process is low priority, then all of its spawned processes start in low priority. So my new question is about starting a java file (run via double-clicking an executable jar in windows) in low priority or changing its priority programmatically during the run. I have tried altering the thread priority, but this has no effect on the windows process priority.

I have tried the following, but it does not change the process priority in the task manager

public class hello{
    public hello(){
        try{
            Thread.currentThread().setPriority(1);
            Thread.sleep(10000);    
        }catch(Exception e){e.printStackTrace();}
    }
}

The only other thing I can think of is to run the program using a batch file, but I would rather keep this in the family so to speak. So does anyone know of a java-based way to change the current process priority? Ideally, it would be nice to be able to change the priority of the process in response to user input while the program is running.

Answer 1

Perhaps you are trying to do something the OS does for you.

In Unix, under load, each process is given a short time slice to do its work. If it uses all its time slice it is assume the process is CPU bound it priority is lowers. If it blocks on IO, it is assumed to be IO bound and its priority is raised (because it didn't use all its time slice)

All this only matters if there isn't enough CPU. If you keep you CPU load below 100% most of the time, every process will get as much CPU as it needs and the priority doesn't make much difference.