times(2)                            CLIX                            times(2)



  NAME

    times - Gets process and child process times

  LIBRARY

    Standard C Library (libc.a)

  SYNOPSIS

    #include <sys/times.h>

    clock_t times(
      struct tms *buffer );

  PARAMETERS

    buffer   Points to the tms structure where system time information is
             stored.

  DESCRIPTION

    The times() function fills the tms structure space pointed to by buffer
    with time-accounting information.  All time values reported by this
    function are in hardware-dependent clock ticks.  A single clock tick is
    1/HZ of the system fundamental clock frequency HZ, found in <sys/param.h>
    where HZ is in Hertz.

    The times of a terminated child process are included in the tms_cutime and
    tms_cstime elements of the parent process when a wait() or waitpid()
    function returns the process ID of that terminated child.

    The tms structure, which is defined in the <sys/times.h> header file
    contains the following members:

    time_t tms_utime
           User time.  The CPU time used while executing user instructions of
           the calling process.

    time_t tms_stime
           System time.  The CPU time used during system execution on behalf
           of the calling process.

    time_t tms_cutime
           User time for children.  The sum of the tms_utime and the total
           tms_cutime times of the child processes.

    time_t tms_cstime
           System time for children.  The sum of the tms_stime and the total
           tms_cstime times of the child processes.




  2/94 - Intergraph Corporation                                              1

  times(2)                            CLIX                            times(2)



    When a child process does not wait for its children, its child-process
    times are not included in its times.

  EXAMPLES

    To determine the amount of time consumed by a process, as well as the
    amount of time consumed by the process and all its children:

    struct tms elapsed_time;
    if (times(&elapsed_time) == (clock_t)-1)
             perror("times failed");


  RETURN VALUES

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

  ERRORS

    The times() function fails when the following is true:

    [EFAULT]   The buffer parameter points to an inaccessible address.

  RELATED INFORMATION

    Functions:  exec(2), fork(2), time(2), sysconf(2), wait(2), waitpid(2)
























  2                                              Intergraph Corporation - 2/94