Provided by: tcl8.4-doc_8.4.20-7_all 
NAME
clock - Obtain and manipulate time
SYNOPSIS
clock option ?arg arg ...?
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DESCRIPTION
This command performs one of several operations that may obtain or manipulate strings or values that
represent some notion of time. The option argument determines what action is carried out by the command.
The legal options (which may be abbreviated) are: 2
clock clicks ?-milliseconds? 2
Return a high-resolution time value as a system-dependent integer value. The unit of the value is 2
system-dependent but should be the highest resolution clock available on the system such as a CPU 2
cycle counter. If -milliseconds is specified, then the value is guaranteed to be of millisecond 2
granularity. This value should only be used for the relative measurement of elapsed time.
clock format clockValue ?-format string? ?-gmt boolean?
Converts an integer time value, typically returned by clock seconds, clock scan, or the atime or
mtime options of the file command, to human-readable form. If the -format argument is present the
next argument is a string that describes how the date and time are to be formatted. Field
descriptors consist of a % followed by a field descriptor character. All other characters are
copied into the result. Valid field descriptors are:
%% Insert a %.
%a Abbreviated weekday name (Mon, Tue, etc.).
%A Full weekday name (Monday, Tuesday, etc.).
%b Abbreviated month name (Jan, Feb, etc.).
%B Full month name. 2
%c 2
Locale specific date and time. The format for date and time in the default "C" locale on 2
Unix/Mac is "%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Y". On Windows, this value is the locale specific long 2
date and time, as specified in the Regional Options control panel settings. 2
%C 2
First two digits of the four-digit year (19 or 20).
%d Day of month (01 - 31). 2
%D 2
Date as %m/%d/%y. 2
%e 2
Day of month (1 - 31), no leading zeros. 2
%g 2
The ISO8601 year number corresponding to the ISO8601 week (%V), expressed as a two-digit 2
year-of-the-century, with leading zero if necessary. 2
%G 2
The ISO8601 year number corresponding to the ISO8601 week (%V), expressed as a four-digit 2
number. 2
%h 2
Abbreviated month name.
%H Hour in 24-hour format (00 - 23). 2
%I 2
Hour in 12-hour format (01 - 12).
%j Day of year (001 - 366). 2
%k 2
Hour in 24-hour format, without leading zeros (0 - 23). 2
%l 2
Hour in 12-hour format, without leading zeros (1 - 12).
%m Month number (01 - 12).
%M Minute (00 - 59). 2
%n 2
Insert a newline.
%p AM/PM indicator. 2
%r 2
Time in a locale-specific "meridian" format. The "meridian" format in the default "C" 2
locale is "%I:%M:%S %p". 2
%R 2
Time as %H:%M. 2
%s 2
Count of seconds since the epoch, expressed as a decimal integer.
%S Seconds (00 - 59). 2
%t 2
Insert a tab. 2
%T 2
Time as %H:%M:%S. 2
%u 2
Weekday number (Monday = 1, Sunday = 7).
%U Week of year (00 - 52), Sunday is the first day of the week. 2
%V 2
Week of year according to ISO-8601 rules. Week 1 of a given year is the week containing 4 2
January. 2
%w 2
Weekday number (Sunday = 0, Saturday = 6).
%W Week of year (00 - 52), Monday is the first day of the week. 2
%x 2
Locale specific date format. The format for a date in the default "C" locale for Unix/Mac 2
is "%m/%d/%y". On Windows, this value is the locale specific short date format, as 2
specified in the Regional Options control panel settings. 2
%X 2
Locale specific 24-hour time format. The format for a 24-hour time in the default "C" 2
locale for Unix/Mac is "%H:%M:%S". On Windows, this value is the locale specific time 2
format, as specified in the Regional Options control panel settings.
%y Year without century (00 - 99).
%Y Year with century (e.g. 1990)
%Z Time zone name.
If the -format argument is not specified, the format string "%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Z %Y" is used. If 2
the -gmt argument is present the next argument must be a boolean which if true specifies that the
time will be formatted as Greenwich Mean Time. If false then the local timezone will be used as
defined by the operating environment.
clock scan dateString ?-base clockVal? ?-gmt boolean?
Convert dateString to an integer clock value (see clock seconds). This command can parse and
convert virtually any standard date and/or time string, which can include standard time zone
mnemonics. If only a time is specified, the current date is assumed. If the string does not
contain a time zone mnemonic, the local time zone is assumed, unless the -gmt argument is true, in
which case the clock value is calculated assuming that the specified time is relative to Greenwich
Mean Time. -gmt, if specified, affects only the computed time value; it does not impact the
interpretation of -base.
If the -base flag is specified, the next argument should contain an integer clock value. Only the
date in this value is used, not the time. This is useful for determining the time on a specific
day or doing other date-relative conversions.
The dateString consists of zero or more specifications of the following form:
time A time of day, which is of the form: hh?:mm?:ss?? ?meridian? ?zone? or hhmm ?meridian?
?zone?. If no meridian is specified, hh is interpreted on a 24-hour clock.
date A specific month and day with optional year. The acceptable formats are mm/dd?/yy?,
monthname dd ?, yy?, dd monthname ?yy?, day, dd monthname yy, ?CC?yymmdd, ?CC?yy-mm-dd, dd-
monthname-?CC?yy. The default year is the current year. If the year is less than 100, we 2
treat the years 00-68 as 2000-2068 and the years 69-99 as 1969-1999. Not all platforms can 2
represent the years 38-70, so an error may result if these years are used.
ISO 8601 point-in-time
An ISO 8601 point-in-time specification, such as CCyymmddThhmmss, where T is the literal T,
CCyymmdd hhmmss, or CCyymmddThh:mm:ss. Note that only these three formats are accepted.
The command does not accept the full range of point-in-time specifications specified in
ISO8601. Other formats can be recognized by using commands such as regexp to extract their
fields and reorganize them into a form accepted by the clock scan command.
relative time
A specification relative to the current time. The format is number unit acceptable units
are year, fortnight, month, week, day, hour, minute (or min), and second (or sec). The
unit can be specified as a singular or plural, as in 3 weeks. These modifiers may also be
specified: tomorrow, yesterday, today, now, last, this, next, ago.
The actual date is calculated according to the following steps. First, any absolute date and/or
time is processed and converted. Using that time as the base, day-of-week specifications are
added. Next, relative specifications are used. If a date or day is specified, and no absolute or
relative time is given, midnight is used. Finally, a correction is applied so that the correct
hour of the day is produced after allowing for daylight savings time differences and the correct
date is given when going from the end of a long month to a short month.
Daylight savings time correction is applied only when the relative time is specified in units of
days or more, ie, days, weeks, fortnights, months or years. This means that when crossing the
daylight savings time boundary, different results will be given for clock scan "1 day" and clock
scan "24 hours":
% clock scan "1 day" -base [clock scan 1999-10-31]
941443200
% clock scan "24 hours" -base [clock scan 1999-10-31]
941439600
clock seconds
Return the current date and time as a system-dependent integer value. The unit of the value is
seconds, allowing it to be used for relative time calculations. The value is usually defined as
total elapsed time from an ``epoch''. You shouldn't assume the value of the epoch.
SEE ALSO
date(1), time(3tcl)
KEYWORDS
clock, date, time
Tcl 8.4 clock(3tcl)