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-.\" Copyright (c) 2006 by Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
-.\"
-.\" SPDX-License-Identifier: Linux-man-pages-copyleft
-.\"
-.\" 2008-06-24, mtk: added some details about where jiffies come into
-.\" play; added section on high-resolution timers.
-.\"
-.TH time 7 (date) "Linux man-pages (unreleased)"
-.SH NAME
-time \- overview of time and timers
-.SH DESCRIPTION
-.SS Real time and process time
-.I "Real time"
-is defined as time measured from some fixed point,
-either from a standard point in the past
-(see the description of the Epoch and calendar time below),
-or from some point (e.g., the start) in the life of a process
-.RI ( "elapsed time" ).
-.P
-.I "Process time"
-is defined as the amount of CPU time used by a process.
-This is sometimes divided into
-.I user
-and
-.I system
-components.
-User CPU time is the time spent executing code in user mode.
-System CPU time is the time spent by the kernel executing
-in system mode on behalf of the process (e.g., executing system calls).
-The
-.BR time (1)
-command can be used to determine the amount of CPU time consumed
-during the execution of a program.
-A program can determine the amount of CPU time it has consumed using
-.BR times (2),
-.BR getrusage (2),
-or
-.BR clock (3).
-.SS The hardware clock
-Most computers have a (battery-powered) hardware clock which the kernel
-reads at boot time in order to initialize the software clock.
-For further details, see
-.BR rtc (4)
-and
-.BR hwclock (8).
-.SS The software clock, HZ, and jiffies
-The accuracy of various system calls that set timeouts,
-(e.g.,
-.BR select (2),
-.BR sigtimedwait (2))
-.\" semtimedop(), mq_timedwait(), io_getevents(), poll() are the same
-.\" futexes and thus sem_timedwait() seem to use high-res timers.
-and measure CPU time (e.g.,
-.BR getrusage (2))
-is limited by the resolution of the
-.IR "software clock" ,
-a clock maintained by the kernel which measures time in
-.IR jiffies .
-The size of a jiffy is determined by the value of the kernel constant
-.IR HZ .
-.P
-The value of
-.I HZ
-varies across kernel versions and hardware platforms.
-On i386 the situation is as follows:
-on kernels up to and including Linux 2.4.x,
-HZ was 100,
-giving a jiffy value of 0.01 seconds;
-starting with Linux 2.6.0,
-HZ was raised to 1000,
-giving a jiffy of 0.001 seconds.
-Since Linux 2.6.13, the HZ value is a kernel
-configuration parameter and can be 100, 250 (the default) or 1000,
-yielding a jiffies value of, respectively, 0.01, 0.004, or 0.001 seconds.
-Since Linux 2.6.20, a further frequency is available:
-300, a number that divides evenly for the common video frame rates
-(PAL, 25 Hz; NTSC, 30 Hz).
-.P
-The
-.BR times (2)
-system call is a special case.
-It reports times with a granularity defined by the kernel constant
-.IR USER_HZ .
-User-space applications can determine the value of this constant using
-.IR sysconf(_SC_CLK_TCK) .
-.\" glibc gets this info with a little help from the ELF loader;
-.\" see glibc elf/dl-support.c and kernel fs/binfmt_elf.c.
-.\"
-.SS System and process clocks; time namespaces
-The kernel supports a range of clocks that measure various kinds of
-elapsed and virtual (i.e., consumed CPU) time.
-These clocks are described in
-.BR clock_gettime (2).
-A few of the clocks are settable using
-.BR clock_settime (2).
-The values of certain clocks are virtualized by time namespaces; see
-.BR time_namespaces (7).
-.\"
-.SS High-resolution timers
-Before Linux 2.6.21, the accuracy of timer and sleep system calls
-(see below) was also limited by the size of the jiffy.
-.P
-Since Linux 2.6.21, Linux supports high-resolution timers (HRTs),
-optionally configurable via
-.BR CONFIG_HIGH_RES_TIMERS .
-On a system that supports HRTs, the accuracy of sleep and timer
-system calls is no longer constrained by the jiffy,
-but instead can be as accurate as the hardware allows
-(microsecond accuracy is typical of modern hardware).
-You can determine whether high-resolution timers are supported by
-checking the resolution returned by a call to
-.BR clock_getres (2)
-or looking at the "resolution" entries in
-.IR /proc/timer_list .
-.P
-HRTs are not supported on all hardware architectures.
-(Support is provided on x86, ARM, and PowerPC, among others.)
-.SS The Epoch
-UNIX systems represent time in seconds since the
-.IR Epoch ,
-1970-01-01 00:00:00 +0000 (UTC).
-.P
-A program can determine the
-.I "calendar time"
-via the
-.BR clock_gettime (2)
-.B CLOCK_REALTIME
-clock,
-which returns time (in seconds and nanoseconds) that have
-elapsed since the Epoch;
-.BR time (2)
-provides similar information, but only with accuracy to the
-nearest second.
-The system time can be changed using
-.BR clock_settime (2).
-.\"
-.SS Broken-down time
-Certain library functions use a structure of
-type
-.I tm
-to represent
-.IR "broken-down time" ,
-which stores time value separated out into distinct components
-(year, month, day, hour, minute, second, etc.).
-This structure is described in
-.BR tm (3type),
-which also describes functions that convert between calendar time and
-broken-down time.
-Functions for converting between broken-down time and printable
-string representations of the time are described in
-.BR ctime (3),
-.BR strftime (3),
-and
-.BR strptime (3).
-.SS Sleeping and setting timers
-Various system calls and functions allow a program to sleep
-(suspend execution) for a specified period of time; see
-.BR nanosleep (2),
-.BR clock_nanosleep (2),
-and
-.BR sleep (3).
-.P
-Various system calls allow a process to set a timer that expires
-at some point in the future, and optionally at repeated intervals;
-see
-.BR alarm (2),
-.BR getitimer (2),
-.BR timerfd_create (2),
-and
-.BR timer_create (2).
-.SS Timer slack
-Since Linux 2.6.28, it is possible to control the "timer slack"
-value for a thread.
-The timer slack is the length of time by
-which the kernel may delay the wake-up of certain
-system calls that block with a timeout.
-Permitting this delay allows the kernel to coalesce wake-up events,
-thus possibly reducing the number of system wake-ups and saving power.
-For more details, see the description of
-.B PR_SET_TIMERSLACK
-in
-.BR prctl (2).
-.SH SEE ALSO
-.ad l
-.nh
-.BR date (1),
-.BR time (1),
-.BR timeout (1),
-.BR adjtimex (2),
-.BR alarm (2),
-.BR clock_gettime (2),
-.BR clock_nanosleep (2),
-.BR getitimer (2),
-.BR getrlimit (2),
-.BR getrusage (2),
-.BR gettimeofday (2),
-.BR nanosleep (2),
-.BR stat (2),
-.BR time (2),
-.BR timer_create (2),
-.BR timerfd_create (2),
-.BR times (2),
-.BR utime (2),
-.BR adjtime (3),
-.BR clock (3),
-.BR clock_getcpuclockid (3),
-.BR ctime (3),
-.BR ntp_adjtime (3),
-.BR ntp_gettime (3),
-.BR pthread_getcpuclockid (3),
-.BR sleep (3),
-.BR strftime (3),
-.BR strptime (3),
-.BR timeradd (3),
-.BR usleep (3),
-.BR rtc (4),
-.BR time_namespaces (7),
-.BR hwclock (8)