clock

clock_t clock (void);

Clock program

Returns the processor time consumed by the program.

The value returned is expressed in clock ticks, which are units of time of a constant but system-specific length (with a relation of CLOCKS_PER_SEC clock ticks per second).

The epoch used as reference by clock varies between systems, but it is related to the program execution (generally its launch). To calculate the actual processing time of a program, the value returned by clock shall be compared to a value returned by a previous call to the same function.

Parameters

none

Return Value

The number of clock ticks elapsed since an epoch related to the particular program execution.

On failure, the function returns a value of -1.

clock_t is a type defined in <ctime> as an alias of a fundamental arithmetic type.

Example

/* clock example: frequency of primes */
#include <stdio.h>      /* printf */
#include <time.h>       /* clock_t, clock, CLOCKS_PER_SEC */
#include <math.h>       /* sqrt */

int frequency_of_primes (int n) {
  int i,j;
  int freq=n-1;
  for (i=2; i<=n; ++i) for (j=sqrt(i);j>1;--j) if (i%j==0) {--freq; break;}
  return freq;
}

int main ()
{
  clock_t t;
  int f;
  t = clock();
  printf ("Calculating...\n");
  f = frequency_of_primes (99999);
  printf ("The number of primes lower than 100,000 is: %d\n",f);
  t = clock() - t;
  printf ("It took me %d clicks (%f seconds).\n",t,((float)t)/CLOCKS_PER_SEC);
  return 0;
}

Output:


Calculating...
The number of primes lower than 100,000 is: 9592
It took me 143 clicks (0.143000 seconds).

Data races

Concurrently calling this function is safe, causing no data races.

Exceptions (C++)

No-throw guarantee: this function never throws exceptions.

functions

macros