times(2)

NAME

times − get process and child process times

SYNOPSIS

#include <sys/times.h>
#include <limits.h>

clock_t times(struct tms ∗buffer);

DESCRIPTION

times() fills the tms structure pointed to by buffer with time-accounting information. The tms structure, defined in <sys/times.h>, contains the following members:

clock_t    tms_utime;
clock_t    tms_stime;
clock_t    tms_cutime;
clock_t    tms_cstime;

This information comes from the calling process and each of its terminated child processes for which it has executed a wait routine. All times are reported in clock ticks. The specific value for a clock tick is defined by the variable CLK_TCK, found in the header <limits.h>.

tms_utime is the CPU time used while executing instructions in the user space of the calling process.

tms_stime is the CPU time used by the system on behalf of the calling process.

tms_cutime is the sum of the tms_utime and the tms_cutime of the child processes.

tms_cstime is the sum of the tms_stime and the tms_cstime of the child processes.

RETURN VALUES

Upon successful completion, times() returns the elapsed real time, in clock ticks, from an arbitrary point in the past (for example, system start-up time). This point does not change from one invocation of times() to another. If times() fails, a value of −1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS

times() fails if:

EFAULT buffer points to an illegal address.

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