NAME

       time - get time in seconds

SYNOPSIS

       #include <time.h>

       time_t time(time_t *t);

DESCRIPTION

       time() returns the time as the number of seconds since the Epoch, 1970-01-01 00:00:00 +0000 (UTC).

       If t is non-NULL, the return value is also stored in the memory pointed to by t.

RETURN VALUE

       On  success,  the  value  of  time  in  seconds  since the Epoch is returned.  On error, ((time_t) -1) is
       returned, and errno is set appropriately.

ERRORS

       EFAULT t points outside your accessible address space.

CONFORMING TO

       SVr4, 4.3BSD, C89, C99, POSIX.1-2001.  POSIX does not specify any error conditions.

NOTES

       POSIX.1 defines seconds since the Epoch using a formula that approximates the number of seconds between a
       specified time and the Epoch.  This formula takes account of the facts that all  years  that  are  evenly
       divisible  by 4 are leap years, but years that are evenly divisible by 100 are not leap years unless they
       are also evenly divisible by 400, in which case they are leap years.  This value is not the same  as  the
       actual  number  of  seconds  between  the  time and the Epoch, because of leap seconds and because system
       clocks are not required to  be  synchronized  to  a  standard  reference.   The  intention  is  that  the
       interpretation  of  seconds  since  the Epoch values be consistent; see POSIX.1-2008 Rationale A.4.15 for
       further rationale.

SEE ALSO

       date(1), gettimeofday(2), ctime(3), ftime(3), time(7)

COLOPHON

       This page is part of release 3.54 of the Linux man-pages project.  A  description  of  the  project,  and
       information about reporting bugs, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

Linux                                              2011-09-09                                            TIME(2)