yield_to(9)

💅 yield_to(9) — aka the "let your bestie have the CPU" syscall

okay so welcome to the Kernel API Manual bestie, this is the yield_to(9) page and honestly? it's giving main character energy 🎀 every detail is staying, the vibe is just getting a glow-up ✨

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🌸 NAME 🌸

yield_to — yield the current processor to another thread in your thread group, or accelerate that thread toward the processor it's on.

no cap, that's literally what it does 💖

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

int yield_to (struct task_struct *p , bool preempt );

like, that's the whole signature, she's simple and she knows it 🫶

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🧚 ARGUMENTS 🧚

• p — target task 💫 (the one you're being nice to)
• preempt — whether task preemption is allowed or not 👀 (as in, does anybody get to interrupt anybody here)

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💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

so listen, this is important, don't @ me: it's the caller's job to make sure the target task_struct can't go away on us before we can do any checks. periodt 💀 like if it vanishes mid-check that's on you, not on the kernel, and nobody wants that.

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🔥 RETURN 🔥

• true (>0) if we actually boosted the target task — slay, we ate 👑
• false (0) if we failed to boost the target — it's giving flop, but respectfully 🙈
• -ESRCH if there's literally no task to yield to — nobody's home bestie 😭

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🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

kernel file ./kernel/sched/syscalls.c, plus the whole friend group: task_prio(9), idle_cpu(9), idle_task(9), find_process_by_pid(9), sched_setscheduler(9), sched_setscheduler_nocheck(9), sys_sched_setscheduler(9), sys_sched_setparam(9), sys_sched_setattr(9), sys_sched_getscheduler(9), sys_sched_getparam(9), sys_sched_getattr(9), sys_sched_setaffinity(9), sys_sched_getaffinity(9), sys_sched_yield(9), yield(9), sys_sched_get_priority_max(9), sys_sched_get_priority_min(9), sys_sched_rr_get_interval(9)

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so yeah, that's the whole page, go forth and yield responsibly 🌈

okay bye bestie, this one's coming to you straight from ./kernel/sched — version dated October 2026 — mwah 💜🧚