clock_gettime()

Get the current time of a clock

Synopsis:

#include <time.h>

int clock_gettime( clockid_t clock_id,
                   struct timespec * tp );

Library:

libc

Description:

The clock_gettime() function gets the current time of the clock specified by clock_id, and puts it into the buffer pointed to by tp.

The tp parameter points to a structure containing at least the following members:

time_t tv_sec: The tv_sec member contains a value that is the number of seconds since 1970.
long tv_nsec: The tv_nsec member contains the number of nanoseconds expired in the current second. This value increases by some multiple of nanoseconds, based on the system clock's resolution.

Returns:

0: Success.
-1: An error occurred (errno is set).

Errors:

EFAULT: A fault occurred trying to access the buffers provided.
EINVAL: Invalid clock_id.
ESRCH: The process associated with this request doesn't exist.

Examples:

/*
 * This program calculates the time required to
 * execute the program specified as its first argument.
 * The time is printed in seconds, on standard out.
 */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <time.h>

#define BILLION  1000000000L;

int main( int argc, char** argv )
  {
    struct timespec start, stop;
    double accum;

    if( clock_gettime( CLOCK_REALTIME, &start) == -1 ) {
      perror( "clock gettime" );
      return EXIT_FAILURE;
    }

    system( argv[1] );

    if( clock_gettime( CLOCK_REALTIME, &stop) == -1 ) {
      perror( "clock gettime" );
      return EXIT_FAILURE;
    }

    accum = ( stop.tv_sec - start.tv_sec )
             + (double)( stop.tv_nsec - start.tv_nsec )
               / (double)BILLION;
    printf( "%lf\n", accum );
    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
  }

Classification:

POSIX 1003.1 (Realtime Extensions)

Safety:
Cancellation point	No
Interrupt handler	No
Signal handler	Yes
Thread	Yes