xref: /freebsd/lib/libc/gen/time.3 (revision 5bf5ca772c6de2d53344a78cf461447cc322ccea)
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32.\"     @(#)time.3	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93
33.\" $FreeBSD$
34.\"
35.Dd July 18, 2003
36.Dt TIME 3
37.Os
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm time
40.Nd get time of day
41.Sh LIBRARY
42.Lb libc
43.Sh SYNOPSIS
44.In time.h
45.Ft time_t
46.Fn time "time_t *tloc"
47.Sh DESCRIPTION
48The
49.Fn time
50function
51returns the value of time in seconds since 0 hours, 0 minutes,
520 seconds, January 1, 1970, Coordinated Universal Time.
53If an error occurs,
54.Fn time
55returns the value
56.Po Vt time_t Pc Ns \-1 .
57.Pp
58The return value is also stored in
59.No \&* Ns Va tloc ,
60provided that
61.Va tloc
62is non-null.
63.Sh ERRORS
64The
65.Fn time
66function may fail for any of the reasons described in
67.Xr gettimeofday 2 .
68.Sh SEE ALSO
69.Xr clock_gettime 2 ,
70.Xr gettimeofday 2 ,
71.Xr ctime 3
72.Sh STANDARDS
73The
74.Nm
75function conforms to
76.St -p1003.1-2001 .
77.Sh HISTORY
78A
79.Fn time
80function appeared in
81.At v6 .
82.Sh BUGS
83Neither
84.St -isoC-99
85nor
86.St -p1003.1-2001
87requires
88.Fn time
89to set
90.Va errno
91on failure; thus, it is impossible for an application to distinguish
92the valid time value \-1 (representing the last UTC second of 1969)
93from the error return value.
94.Pp
95Systems conforming to earlier versions of the C and
96.Tn POSIX
97standards (including older versions of
98.Fx )
99did not set
100.No \&* Ns Va tloc
101in the error case.
102