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

       time — get time

SYNOPSIS

       #include <time.h>

       time_t time(time_t *tloc);

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.1‐2008 defers to the ISO C standard.

       The time() function shall return the value of time in seconds since the Epoch.

       The  tloc  argument  points to an area where the return value is also stored. If tloc is a
       null pointer, no value is stored.

RETURN VALUE

       Upon successful completion, time() shall return the value of time.  Otherwise,  (time_t)−1
       shall be returned.

ERRORS

       The time() function may fail if:

       EOVERFLOW
              The number of seconds since the Epoch will not fit in an object of type time_t.

       The following sections are informative.

EXAMPLES

   Getting the Current Time
       The  following example uses the time() function to calculate the time elapsed, in seconds,
       since the Epoch, localtime() to convert that value to a broken-down time, and asctime() to
       convert the broken-down time values into a printable string.

           #include <stdio.h>
           #include <time.h>

           int main(void)
           {
           time_t result;

               result = time(NULL);
               printf("%s%ju secs since the Epoch\n",
                   asctime(localtime(&result)),
                       (uintmax_t)result);
               return(0);
           }

       This example writes the current time to stdout in a form like this:

           Wed Jun 26 10:32:15 1996
           835810335 secs since the Epoch

   Timing an Event
       The  following  example  gets  the  current  time, prints it out in the user's format, and
       prints the number of minutes to an event being timed.

           #include <time.h>
           #include <stdio.h>
           ...
           time_t now;
           int minutes_to_event;
           ...
           time(&now);
           minutes_to_event = ...;
           printf("The time is ");
           puts(asctime(localtime(&now)));
           printf("There are %d minutes to the event.\n",
               minutes_to_event);
           ...

APPLICATION USAGE

       None.

RATIONALE

       The time() function returns a value in seconds while  clock_gettime()  and  gettimeofday()
       return  a  struct  timespec  (seconds  and  nanoseconds)  and  struct timeval (seconds and
       microseconds), respectively, and are therefore capable of returning  more  precise  times.
       The  times()  function is also capable of more precision than time() as it returns a value
       in clock ticks, although it returns the elapsed time since  an  arbitrary  point  such  as
       system boot time, not since the epoch.

       Implementations   in   which   time_t   is   a  32-bit  signed  integer  (many  historical
       implementations) fail in the year  2038.  POSIX.1‐2008  does  not  address  this  problem.
       However, the use of the time_t type is mandated in order to ease the eventual fix.

       On  some  systems  the  time()  function  is implemented using a system call that does not
       return an error condition in addition  to  the  return  value.  On  these  systems  it  is
       impossible  to  differentiate  between  valid and invalid return values and hence overflow
       conditions cannot be reliably detected.

       The use of the <time.h> header instead of  <sys/types.h>  allows  compatibility  with  the
       ISO C standard.

       Many historical implementations (including Version 7) and the 1984 /usr/group standard use
       long instead of time_t.  This volume of POSIX.1‐2008 uses the  latter  type  in  order  to
       agree with the ISO C standard.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

       In  a future version of this volume of POSIX.1‐2008, time_t is likely to be required to be
       capable of representing times far in the future. Whether this will be mandated as a 64-bit
       type  or  a  requirement that a specific date in the future be representable (for example,
       10000 AD) is not yet determined. Systems purchased after the approval of  this  volume  of
       POSIX.1‐2008  should  be  evaluated  to  determine whether their lifetime will extend past
       2038.

SEE ALSO

       asctime(),  clock(),  clock_getres(),  ctime(),  difftime(),  futimens(),  gettimeofday(),
       gmtime(), localtime(), mktime(), strftime(), strptime(), times(), utime()

       The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, <time.h>

COPYRIGHT

       Portions  of  this  text  are  reprinted  and  reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std
       1003.1, 2013 Edition, Standard for Information Technology  --  Portable  Operating  System
       Interface  (POSIX),  The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the
       Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc  and  The  Open  Group.   (This  is
       POSIX.1-2008  with  the  2013  Technical  Corrigendum  1  applied.)  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.unix.org/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 .