xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/time/time.1 (revision 1669d8afc64812c8d2d1d147ae1fd42ff441e1b1)
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32.\"     @(#)time.1	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
33.\" $FreeBSD$
34.\"
35.Dd May 14, 2006
36.Dt TIME 1
37.Os
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm time
40.Nd time command execution
41.Sh SYNOPSIS
42.Nm
43.Op Fl al
44.Op Fl h | Fl p
45.Op Fl o Ar file
46.Ar utility Op Ar argument ...
47.Sh DESCRIPTION
48The
49.Nm
50utility
51executes and
52times the specified
53.Ar utility .
54After the
55.Ar utility
56finishes,
57.Nm
58writes to the standard error stream,
59(in seconds):
60the total time elapsed,
61the time used to execute the
62.Ar utility
63process and the time consumed by system overhead.
64.Pp
65The following options are available:
66.Bl -tag -width indent
67.It Fl a
68If the
69.Fl o
70flag is used, append to the specified file rather than overwriting
71it.
72Otherwise, this option has no effect.
73.It Fl h
74Print times in a human friendly format.
75Times are printed in minutes, hours,
76etc.\& as appropriate.
77.It Fl l
78The contents of the
79.Em rusage
80structure are printed as well.
81.It Fl o Ar file
82Write the output to
83.Ar file
84instead of stderr.
85If
86.Ar file
87exists and the
88.Fl a
89flag is not specified, the file will be overwritten.
90.It Fl p
91Makes
92.Nm
93output POSIX.2 compliant (each time is printed on its own line).
94.El
95.Pp
96Some shells may provide a builtin
97.Nm
98command which is similar or identical to this utility.
99Consult the
100.Xr builtin 1
101manual page.
102.Pp
103If
104.Nm
105receives a
106.Dv SIGINFO
107(see the status argument for
108.Xr stty 1 )
109signal, the current time the given command is running will be written to the
110standard output.
111.Sh ENVIRONMENT
112The
113.Ev PATH
114environment variable is used to locate the requested
115.Ar utility
116if the name contains no
117.Ql /
118characters.
119.Sh EXIT STATUS
120If
121.Ar utility
122could be timed successfully, its exit status is returned.
123If
124.Ar utility
125terminated abnormally, a warning message is output to stderr.
126If the
127.Ar utility
128was found but could not be run, the exit status is 126.
129If no
130.Ar utility
131could be found at all, the exit status is 127.
132If
133.Nm
134encounters any other error, the exit status is between 1 and 125
135included.
136.Sh SEE ALSO
137.Xr builtin 1 ,
138.Xr csh 1 ,
139.Xr getrusage 2 ,
140.Xr wait 2
141.Sh STANDARDS
142The
143.Nm
144utility is expected to conform to ISO/IEC 9945-2:1993 (``POSIX'').
145.Sh HISTORY
146A
147.Nm
148utility appeared in
149.At v3 .
150