1time(7)                Miscellaneous Information Manual                time(7)
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NAME

6       time - overview of time and timers
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DESCRIPTION

9   Real time and process time
10       Real  time  is  defined  as time measured from some fixed point, either
11       from a standard point in the past (see the description of the Epoch and
12       calendar  time below), or from some point (e.g., the start) in the life
13       of a process (elapsed time).
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15       Process time is defined as the amount of CPU time used  by  a  process.
16       This  is  sometimes  divided into user and system components.  User CPU
17       time is the time spent executing code in user mode.  System CPU time is
18       the  time spent by the kernel executing in system mode on behalf of the
19       process (e.g., executing system calls).  The  time(1)  command  can  be
20       used  to determine the amount of CPU time consumed during the execution
21       of a program.  A program can determine the amount of CPU  time  it  has
22       consumed using times(2), getrusage(2), or clock(3).
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24   The hardware clock
25       Most computers have a (battery-powered) hardware clock which the kernel
26       reads at boot time in order to initialize the software clock.  For fur‐
27       ther details, see rtc(4) and hwclock(8).
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29   The software clock, HZ, and jiffies
30       The  accuracy  of  various  system  calls that set timeouts, (e.g., se‐
31       lect(2), sigtimedwait(2)) and measure CPU time (e.g., getrusage(2))  is
32       limited  by the resolution of the software clock, a clock maintained by
33       the kernel which measures time in jiffies.  The size of a jiffy is  de‐
34       termined by the value of the kernel constant HZ.
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36       The  value  of HZ varies across kernel versions and hardware platforms.
37       On i386 the situation is as follows: on kernels  up  to  and  including
38       Linux 2.4.x, HZ was 100, giving a jiffy value of 0.01 seconds; starting
39       with Linux 2.6.0, HZ was raised to 1000, giving a jiffy of  0.001  sec‐
40       onds.   Since  Linux 2.6.13, the HZ value is a kernel configuration pa‐
41       rameter and can be 100, 250 (the default) or 1000, yielding  a  jiffies
42       value  of,  respectively,  0.01,  0.004, or 0.001 seconds.  Since Linux
43       2.6.20, a further frequency is available: 300, a  number  that  divides
44       evenly for the common video frame rates (PAL, 25 Hz; NTSC, 30 Hz).
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46       The  times(2)  system  call is a special case.  It reports times with a
47       granularity defined by the kernel constant USER_HZ.  User-space  appli‐
48       cations    can   determine   the   value   of   this   constant   using
49       sysconf(_SC_CLK_TCK).
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51   System and process clocks; time namespaces
52       The kernel supports a range of clocks that  measure  various  kinds  of
53       elapsed  and  virtual  (i.e., consumed CPU) time.  These clocks are de‐
54       scribed in clock_gettime(2).  A few of the clocks  are  settable  using
55       clock_settime(2).  The values of certain clocks are virtualized by time
56       namespaces; see time_namespaces(7).
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58   High-resolution timers
59       Before Linux 2.6.21, the accuracy of timer and sleep system calls  (see
60       below) was also limited by the size of the jiffy.
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62       Since  Linux  2.6.21, Linux supports high-resolution timers (HRTs), op‐
63       tionally configurable via CONFIG_HIGH_RES_TIMERS.   On  a  system  that
64       supports  HRTs,  the  accuracy  of  sleep  and timer system calls is no
65       longer constrained by the jiffy, but instead can be as accurate as  the
66       hardware  allows  (microsecond accuracy is typical of modern hardware).
67       You can determine  whether  high-resolution  timers  are  supported  by
68       checking  the resolution returned by a call to clock_getres(2) or look‐
69       ing at the "resolution" entries in /proc/timer_list.
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71       HRTs are not supported on all hardware architectures.  (Support is pro‐
72       vided on x86, ARM, and PowerPC, among others.)
73
74   The Epoch
75       UNIX  systems  represent  time  in  seconds since the Epoch, 1970-01-01
76       00:00:00 +0000 (UTC).
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78       A program can determine the  calendar  time  via  the  clock_gettime(2)
79       CLOCK_REALTIME  clock,  which returns time (in seconds and nanoseconds)
80       that have elapsed since the Epoch; time(2)  provides  similar  informa‐
81       tion,  but  only  with accuracy to the nearest second.  The system time
82       can be changed using clock_settime(2).
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84   Broken-down time
85       Certain library functions use a structure of type tm to represent  bro‐
86       ken-down time, which stores time value separated out into distinct com‐
87       ponents (year, month, day, hour, minute, second, etc.).  This structure
88       is  described in tm(3type), which also describes functions that convert
89       between calendar time and broken-down time.  Functions  for  converting
90       between  broken-down  time  and printable string representations of the
91       time are described in ctime(3), strftime(3), and strptime(3).
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93   Sleeping and setting timers
94       Various system calls and functions allow a program  to  sleep  (suspend
95       execution)   for   a   specified  period  of  time;  see  nanosleep(2),
96       clock_nanosleep(2), and sleep(3).
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98       Various system calls allow a process to set a  timer  that  expires  at
99       some  point  in  the  future, and optionally at repeated intervals; see
100       alarm(2), getitimer(2), timerfd_create(2), and timer_create(2).
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102   Timer slack
103       Since Linux 2.6.28, it is possible to control the "timer  slack"  value
104       for  a thread.  The timer slack is the length of time by which the ker‐
105       nel may delay the wake-up of certain system calls  that  block  with  a
106       timeout.   Permitting  this delay allows the kernel to coalesce wake-up
107       events, thus possibly reducing the number of system wake-ups and saving
108       power.   For  more details, see the description of PR_SET_TIMERSLACK in
109       prctl(2).
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SEE ALSO

112       date(1), time(1), timeout(1), adjtimex(2), alarm(2), clock_gettime(2),
113       clock_nanosleep(2), getitimer(2), getrlimit(2), getrusage(2),
114       gettimeofday(2), nanosleep(2), stat(2), time(2), timer_create(2),
115       timerfd_create(2), times(2), utime(2), adjtime(3), clock(3),
116       clock_getcpuclockid(3), ctime(3), ntp_adjtime(3), ntp_gettime(3),
117       pthread_getcpuclockid(3), sleep(3), strftime(3), strptime(3),
118       timeradd(3), usleep(3), rtc(4), time_namespaces(7), hwclock(8)
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122Linux man-pages 6.05              2023-01-22                           time(7)
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