www.LinuxHowtos.org

GETLOADAVG

Section: Linux Programmer's Manual (3)
Updated: 2016-03-15
Index Return to Main Contents

NAME

getloadavg - get system load averages

SYNOPSIS

#include <stdlib.h>

int getloadavg(double loadavg[], int nelem);

Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):

getloadavg():

    Since glibc 2.19:
        _DEFAULT_SOURCE
    In glibc up to and including 2.19:
        _BSD_SOURCE

DESCRIPTION

The getloadavg() function returns the number of processes in the system run queue averaged over various periods of time. Up to nelem samples are retrieved and assigned to successive elements of loadavg[]. The system imposes a maximum of 3 samples, representing averages over the last 1, 5, and 15 minutes, respectively.

RETURN VALUE

If the load average was unobtainable, -1 is returned; otherwise, the number of samples actually retrieved is returned.

VERSIONS

This function is available in glibc since version 2.2.

ATTRIBUTES

For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).

Interface	Attribute	Value
getloadavg()	Thread safety	MT-Safe

CONFORMING TO

Not in POSIX.1. Present on the BSDs and Solaris.

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 4.13 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.