CLOCK(3P)

PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

NAME
clock — report CPU time used

SYNOPSIS

#include <time.h>

clock_t clock(void);

DESCRIPTION
The functionality described on this reference page is aligned with the ISO C standard. Any conflict between the requirements described here and the ISO C standard is unintentional. This volume of POSIX.1-2017 defers to the ISO C standard.

The clock() function shall return the implementation's best approximation to the processor time used by the process since the beginning of an implementation-defined era related only to the process invocation.

RETURN VALUE
To determine the time in seconds, the value returned by clock() should be divided by the value of the macro CLOCKS_PER_SEC. CLOCKS_PER_SEC is defined to be one million in <time.h>. If the processor time used is not available or its value cannot be represented, the function shall return the value (clock_t)-1.

ERRORS
No errors are defined.

The following sections are informative.

EXAMPLES
None.

APPLICATION USAGE
In programming environments where clock_t is a 32-bit integer type and CLOCKS_PER_SEC is one million, clock() will start failing in less than 36 minutes of processor time for signed clock_t, or 72 minutes for unsigned clock_t. Applications intended to be portable to such environments should use times() instead (or clock_gettime() with CLOCK_PROCESS_CPUTIME_ID, if supported).

In order to measure the time spent in a program, clock() should be called at the start of the program and its return value subtracted from the value returned by subsequent calls. The value returned by clock() is defined for compatibility across systems that have clocks with different resolutions. The resolution on any particular system need not be to microsecond accuracy.

RATIONALE
None.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS
None.

SEE ALSO
asctime(), clock_getres(), ctime(), difftime(), gmtime(), localtime(), mktime(), strftime(), strptime(), time(), times(), utime()

The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1-2017, <time.h>

COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright (C) 2018 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the source files to man page format. To report such errors, see https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .