SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-SA-4.0 OR BSD-2-Clause
copyrights:
- Copyright (C) 1988, 1998 On-Line Applications Research Corporation (OAR)
enabled-by: true
glossary-type: term
links:
- role: glossary-member
  uid: ../glossary-general
term: priority
text: |
  The priority is a mechanism used to represent the relative importance of an
  element in a set of items.

  For example, ${rtems:/term} uses ${priority-task:/plural} to determine which
  ${task:/term} should execute on a processor.  In RTEMS, priorities are
  represented by non-negative integers.

  For the Classic ${api:/term}, if a numerical priority value ``A`` is greater
  than a numerical priority value ``B``, then ``A`` expresses a
  ${priority-lower:/term} than ``B``.  If a numerical priority value ``C`` is
  less than a numerical priority value ``D``, then ``C`` expresses a
  ${priority-higher:/term} than ``D``.

  For the ${posix:/term} API, if a numerical priority value ``R`` is less than
  a numerical priority value ``S``, then ``R`` expresses a lower priority than
  ``S``.  If a numerical priority value ``T`` is greater than a numerical
  priority value ``U``, then ``T`` expresses a higher priority than ``U``.
type: glossary