sched_yield(2)

sched_yield2

Yield the processor

Usage

#include <sched.h>

int sched_yield(void);

Library

Standard C library (libc, -lc)

Overview

sched_yield() causes the calling thread to relinquish the CPU. The thread is moved to the end of the queue for its static priority and a new thread gets to run.

Return value

On success, sched_yield() returns 0. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set to indicate the error.

Errors

In the Linux implementation, sched_yield() always succeeds.

Caveats

sched_yield() is intended for use with real-time scheduling policies (i.e., SCHED_FIFO or SCHED_RR). Use of sched_yield() with nondeterministic scheduling policies such as SCHED_OTHER is unspecified and very likely means your application design is broken.

If the calling thread is the only thread in the highest priority list at that time, it will continue to run after a call to sched_yield().

Avoid calling sched_yield() unnecessarily or inappropriately (e.g., when resources needed by other schedulable threads are still held by the caller), since doing so will result in unnecessary context switches, which will degrade system performance.

Releases

19 releases since Debian 1.1 (Buzz); the text changed 14 times.

  1. 1.1–1.2
  2. 1.3–2.1
  3. 2.2
  4. 3.0–3.1
  5. 4.0
  6. 5.0
  7. 6.0
  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. 9
  11. 10
  12. 11
  13. 12
  14. 13
  15. Arch

Standards

POSIX.1-2024.

History

POSIX.1-2001 (but optional). POSIX.1-2008.

Before POSIX.1-2008, systems on which sched_yield() is available defined _POSIX_PRIORITY_SCHEDULING in <unistd.h>.

From man-pages 6.19-1 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.