clock_gettime.3   [plain text]


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.Dd January 26, 2016
.Dt CLOCK_GETTIME 3
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm clock_gettime ,
.Nm clock_settime ,
.Nm clock_getres ,
.Nm clock_gettime_nsec_np
.Nd get/set date and time
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Fd #include <time.h>
.Ft int
.Fn clock_gettime "clockid_t clock_id" "struct timespec *tp"
.Ft int
.Fn clock_settime "clockid_t clock_id" "const struct timespec *tp"
.Ft int
.Fn clock_getres "clockid_t clock_id" "struct timespec *tp"
.Ft uint64_t
.Fn clock_gettime_nsec_np "clockid_t clock_id"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Fn clock_gettime
and
.Fn clock_settime
functions
allow the calling process to retrieve or set the value used by a clock
which is specified by
.Fa clock_id .
.Pp
.Fa clock_id
can be a value from
one of 5 predefined values:
.Bl -tag -width Er
.It Dv CLOCK_REALTIME
the system's real time (i.e. wall time) clock, expressed as the amount of time
since the Epoch.
This is the same as the value returned by
.Xr gettimeofday 2 .
.It Dv CLOCK_MONOTONIC
clock that increments monotonically, tracking the time since an arbitrary
point, and will continue to increment while the system is asleep.
.It Dv CLOCK_MONOTONIC_RAW
clock that increments monotonically, tracking the time since an arbitrary point
like CLOCK_MONOTONIC.  However, this clock is unaffected by frequency or time
adjustments.  It should not be compared to other system time sources.
.It Dv CLOCK_MONOTONIC_RAW_APPROX
like CLOCK_MONOTONIC_RAW, but reads a value cached by the system at context
switch.  This can be read faster, but at a loss of accuracy as it may return
values that are milliseconds old.
.It Dv CLOCK_UPTIME_RAW
clock that increments monotonically, in the same manner as
.Dv CLOCK_MONOTONIC_RAW,
but that does not increment while the system is asleep.
The returned value is identical to the result of
.Fn mach_absolute_time
after the appropriate mach_timebase conversion is applied.
.It Dv CLOCK_UPTIME_RAW_APPROX
like CLOCK_UPTIME_RAW, but reads a value cached by the system at context
switch.  This can be read faster, but at a loss of accuracy as it may return
values that are milliseconds old.
.It Dv CLOCK_PROCESS_CPUTIME_ID
clock that tracks the amount of CPU (in user- or kernel-mode) used by the
calling process.
.It Dv CLOCK_THREAD_CPUTIME_ID
clock that tracks the amount of CPU (in user- or kernel-mode) used by the
calling thread.
.El
.Pp
The structure pointed to by
.Fa tp
is defined in
.In sys/time.h
as:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
struct timespec {
    time_t  tv_sec;     /* seconds */
    long    tv_nsec;    /* and nanoseconds */
};
.Ed
.Pp
Only the
.Dv CLOCK_REALTIME
clock can be set, and only the superuser may do so.
.Pp
The resolution of a clock is returned by the
.Fn clock_getres
call.
This value is placed in a (non-null)
.Fa *tp .
This value may be smaller than the actual precision of the underlying clock,
but represents a lower bound on the resolution.
.Pp
As a non-portable extension, the
.Fn clock_gettime_nsec_np
function will return the clock value in 64-bit nanoseconds.
.Sh RETURN VALUES
A 0 return value indicates that the call succeeded.
A \-1 return value indicates an error occurred, and in this
case an error code is stored into the global variable
.Va errno .
For
.Fn clock_gettime_nsec_np
a return value of non-0 indicates success.  A 0 return value indicates an error
occurred and an error code is stored in
.Va errno .
.Sh ERRORS
.Fn clock_gettime ,
.Fn clock_settime ,
.Fn clock_getres ,
and
.Fn clock_gettime_nsec_np
will fail if:
.Bl -tag -width Er
.It Bq Er EINVAL
.Fa clock_id
is not a valid value.
.It Bq Er EFAULT
The
.Fa tp
argument address referenced invalid memory.
.El
.Pp
In addition,
.Fn clock_settime
may return the following errors:
.Bl -tag -width Er
.It Bq Er EPERM
A user other than the superuser attempted to set the time.
.It Bq Er EINVAL
.Fa clock_id
specifies a clock that isn't settable,
.Fa tp
specifies a nanosecond value less than zero or greater than 1000 million,
or a value outside the range of the specified clock.
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr date 1 ,
.Xr getitimer 2 ,
.Xr gettimeofday 2 ,
.Sh HISTORY
These functions first appeared
in
Mac OSX 10.12
.Sh STANDARDS
The
.Fn clock_gettime ,
.Fn clock_settime ,
and
.Fn clock_getres
system calls conform to
.St -p1003.1b-93 .
.Fn cleck_gettime_nsec_np
is a non-portable Darwin extension.
The clock IDs
.Fa CLOCK_MONOTONIC_RAW
and
.Fa CLOCK_UPTIME_RAW
are extensions to the POSIX interface.