'\" te
.\"  Copyright 1989 AT&T  Copyright (c) 2002, Sun Microsystems, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
.TH clock 3C "24 Jul 2002" "SunOS 5.11" "Standard C Library Functions"
.SH NAME
clock \- report CPU time used
.SH SYNOPSIS
.LP
.nf
#include <time.h>

\fBclock_t\fR \fBclock\fR(\fBvoid\fR);
.fi

.SH DESCRIPTION
.sp
.LP
The \fBclock()\fR function returns the amount of CPU time (in microseconds) used since the first call to \fBclock()\fR in the calling process. The time reported is the sum of the user and system times of the calling process and its terminated child processes for which it has executed the \fBwait\fR(3C) function, the \fBpclose\fR(3C) function, or the \fBsystem\fR(3C) function.
.SH RETURN VALUES
.sp
.LP
Dividing the value returned by \fBclock()\fR by the constant \fBCLOCKS_PER_SEC\fR, defined in the <\fBtime.h\fR> header, will give the time in seconds.  If the process time used is not available or cannot be  represented, clock returns the value \fB(clock_t) \(mi1\fR.
.SH USAGE
.sp
.LP
The value returned by \fBclock()\fR is defined in microseconds for compatibility with systems that have CPU clocks with much higher resolution. Because of this, the value returned will wrap around after accumulating only 2147 seconds of CPU time (about 36 minutes).
.SH ATTRIBUTES
.sp
.LP
See \fBattributes\fR(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
.sp

.sp
.TS
tab() box;
cw(2.75i) |cw(2.75i) 
lw(2.75i) |lw(2.75i) 
.
ATTRIBUTE TYPEATTRIBUTE VALUE
_
Interface StabilityCommitted
_
MT-LevelMT-Safe
_
StandardSee \fBstandards\fR(5).
.TE

.SH SEE ALSO
.sp
.LP
\fBtimes\fR(2), \fBpopen\fR(3C), \fBsystem\fR(3C), \fBwait\fR(3C), \fBattributes\fR(5), \fBstandards\fR(5)