NAME

times - get process and child process times

SYNOPSIS

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

clock_t times(struct tms *buffer);

DESCRIPTION

times fills the tms structure  pointed  to  by  buffer  with
time-accounting  information.   The tms structure is defined
in <sys/times.h> as follows:

     struct    tms {
          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 per second. Clock ticks are a system-dependent parameter. The specific value for an implementation is defined by the variable CLK_TCK, found in the include file limits.h. (On a 3B2 Computer clock ticks occur 100 times per second.)

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.

times fails if:

EFAULT        buffer points to an illegal address.

SEE ALSO

exec(2), fork(2), time(2), wait(2), waitid(2), waitpid(3C).
time(1), timex(1) in the User's Reference Manual.

DIAGNOSTICS

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