xref: /freebsd/lib/libc/gen/time.3 (revision ba54cdcdda639bebc917b1796ecbc35a83ff8625)
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36.\"     @(#)time.3	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93
37.\" $FreeBSD$
38.\"
39.Dd July 18, 2003
40.Dt TIME 3
41.Os
42.Sh NAME
43.Nm time
44.Nd get time of day
45.Sh LIBRARY
46.Lb libc
47.Sh SYNOPSIS
48.In time.h
49.Ft time_t
50.Fn time "time_t *tloc"
51.Sh DESCRIPTION
52The
53.Fn time
54function
55returns the value of time in seconds since 0 hours, 0 minutes,
560 seconds, January 1, 1970, Coordinated Universal Time.
57If an error occurs,
58.Fn time
59returns the value
60.Po Vt time_t Pc Ns \-1 .
61.Pp
62The return value is also stored in
63.No \&* Ns Va tloc ,
64provided that
65.Va tloc
66is non-null.
67.Sh ERRORS
68The
69.Fn time
70function may fail for any of the reasons described in
71.Xr gettimeofday 2 .
72.Sh SEE ALSO
73.Xr gettimeofday 2 ,
74.Xr ctime 3
75.Sh STANDARDS
76The
77.Nm
78function conforms to
79.St -p1003.1-2001 .
80.Sh BUGS
81Neither
82.St -isoC-99
83nor
84.St -p1003.1-2001
85requires
86.Fn time
87to set
88.Va errno
89on failure; thus, it is impossible for an application to distinguish
90the valid time value \-1 (representing the last UTC second of 1969)
91from the error return value.
92.Pp
93Systems conforming to earlier versions of the C and
94.Tn POSIX
95standards (including older versions of
96.Fx )
97did not set
98.No \&* Ns Va tloc
99in the error case.
100.Sh HISTORY
101A
102.Fn time
103function appeared in
104.At v6 .
105