getloadavg(3)

✨ getloadavg(3) ✨

okay bestie, welcome to the getloadavg page 💖 this one lives in section 3 of the manual, and it's literally just "hey, how stressed is my computer rn" in function form. no cap.

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🌸 NAME 🌸

getloadavg — get system load averages 💅

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🎀 LIBRARY 🎀

Standard C library (libc, -lc)

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

#include <stdlib.h>

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

🦋 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

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💜 DESCRIPTION 💜

so basically, getloadavg() tells you how many processes are chilling in the system run queue, averaged over various periods of time. like, it's the vibe check for your CPU's to-do list 📋

Up to n samples get retrieved and assigned to successive elements of loadavg[]. and here's the tea: the system imposes a maximum of 3 samples, representing averages over the last 1, 5, and 15 minutes, respectively. so that's it, that's the whole menu 🍓

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👑 RETURN VALUE 👑

if the load average was unobtainable, -1 is returned 😭 otherwise, you get back the number of samples actually retrieved. so like, count your blessings, literally.

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💀 ATTRIBUTES 💀

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

• Interface: getloadavg()
• Attribute: Thread safety
• Value: MT-Safe

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🌈 STANDARDS 🌈

BSD. periodt.

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🧚 HISTORY 🧚

4.3BSD-Reno, Solaris. glibc 2.2. she's been around, bestie, she's a legend 👑

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🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

uptime(1), proc(5)

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and that's the page!! this one's from the Linux man-pages 6.20 era, dated 2025-09-21 💖 go forth and check your load average, you icon, you. slay ✨