So when I type time <some_program>
I have nice CPU time measurement. But exactly how is this achieved? Also does this have any performance impact on the some_program
?
How does time command work
command linetime
command linetime
So when I type time <some_program>
I have nice CPU time measurement. But exactly how is this achieved? Also does this have any performance impact on the some_program
?
Best Answer
man page of time says
You can see this where the
time
command is implemented in c program.The total CPU time is the combination of the amount of time the CPU(s) spend performing some action for a program and the amount of time the CPU(s) spend performing system calls for the kernel on the program's behalf. When a program loops through an array, it is accumulating user CPU time. Conversely, when a program executes a system call such as exec or fork, it is accumulating system CPU time.
According to the source code of the GNU implementation of time, most information shown by time is derived from the wait3 system call. On systems that do not have a wait3 call that returns status information, the times system call is used instead.