NAME

       times - get process times

SYNOPSIS

       #include <sys/times.h>

       clock_t times(struct tms *buf);

DESCRIPTION

       times()  stores  the  current  process  times in the struct tms that buf points to.  The struct tms is as
       defined in <sys/times.h>:

           struct tms {
               clock_t tms_utime;  /* user time */
               clock_t tms_stime;  /* system time */
               clock_t tms_cutime; /* user time of children */
               clock_t tms_cstime; /* system time of children */
           };

       The tms_utime field contains the CPU time spent executing  instructions  of  the  calling  process.   The
       tms_stime  field contains the CPU time spent in the system while executing tasks on behalf of the calling
       process.  The tms_cutime field contains the sum of the tms_utime and tms_cutime values for all waited-for
       terminated children.  The tms_cstime field contains the sum of the tms_stime and  tms_cstime  values  for
       all waited-for terminated children.

       Times  for  terminated  children (and their descendants) are added in at the moment wait(2) or waitpid(2)
       returns their process ID.  In particular, times of grandchildren that the children did not wait  for  are
       never seen.

       All times reported are in clock ticks.

RETURN VALUE

       times()  returns  the  number of clock ticks that have elapsed since an arbitrary point in the past.  The
       return value may overflow the possible range of type clock_t.  On error, (clock_t) -1  is  returned,  and
       errno is set appropriately.

ERRORS

       EFAULT tms points outside the process's address space.

CONFORMING TO

       POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, SVr4, 4.3BSD.

NOTES

       The number of clock ticks per second can be obtained using:

           sysconf(_SC_CLK_TCK);

       In  POSIX.1-1996  the  symbol  CLK_TCK (defined in <time.h>) is mentioned as obsolescent.  It is obsolete
       now.

       In Linux kernel versions before 2.6.9, if the disposition of SIGCHLD is set to SIG_IGN, then the times of
       terminated children are  automatically  included  in  the  tms_cstime  and  tms_cutime  fields,  although
       POSIX.1-2001  says  that  this  should happen only if the calling process wait(2)s on its children.  This
       nonconformance is rectified in Linux 2.6.9 and later.

       On Linux, the buf argument can be specified as NULL, with the result that times() just returns a function
       result.  However, POSIX does not specify this behavior, and most other  UNIX  implementations  require  a
       non-NULL value for buf.

       Note  that  clock(3)  also  returns  a  value  of  type  clock_t,  but this value is measured in units of
       CLOCKS_PER_SEC, not the clock ticks used by times().

       On Linux, the "arbitrary point in the past" from which the return value of times() is measured has varied
       across kernel versions.  On Linux 2.4 and earlier this point is the moment the system was booted.   Since
       Linux 2.6, this point is (2^32/HZ) - 300 (i.e., about 429 million) seconds before system boot time.  This
       variability  across  kernel  versions  (and across UNIX implementations), combined with the fact that the
       returned value may overflow the range of clock_t, means that a portable  application  would  be  wise  to
       avoid using this value.  To measure changes in elapsed time, use clock_gettime(2) instead.

   Historical
       SVr1-3  returns  long  and  the  struct  members  are of type time_t although they store clock ticks, not
       seconds since the Epoch.  V7 used long for the struct members, because it had no type time_t yet.

BUGS

       A limitation of the Linux system call conventions on some architectures  (notably  i386)  means  that  on
       Linux  2.6  there is a small time window (41 seconds) soon after boot when times() can return -1, falsely
       indicating that an error occurred.  The same problem can occur when  the  return  value  wraps  past  the
       maximum value that can be stored in clock_t.

SEE ALSO

       time(1), getrusage(2), wait(2), clock(3), sysconf(3), time(7)

COLOPHON

       This  page  is  part  of  release  4.04  of  the  Linux man-pages project.  A description of the project,
       information  about  reporting  bugs,  and  the  latest  version  of  this   page,   can   be   found   at
       http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

Linux                                              2015-08-08                                           TIMES(2)