xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/time/time.1 (revision 74bf4e164ba5851606a27d4feff27717452583e5)
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32.\"     @(#)time.1	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
33.\" $FreeBSD$
34.\"
35.Dd June 6, 1993
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.Sh ENVIRONMENT
103The
104.Ev PATH
105environment variable is used to locate the requested
106.Ar utility
107if the name contains no
108.Ql /
109characters.
110.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
111If
112.Ar utility
113could be timed successfully, its exit status is returned.
114If
115.Ar utility
116terminated abnormally, a warning message is output to stderr.
117If the
118.Ar utility
119was found but could not be run, the exit status is 126.
120If no
121.Ar utility
122could be found at all, the exit status is 127.
123If
124.Nm
125encounters any other error, the exit status is between 1 and 125
126included.
127.Sh SEE ALSO
128.Xr builtin 1 ,
129.Xr csh 1 ,
130.Xr getrusage 2 ,
131.Xr wait 2
132.Sh STANDARDS
133The
134.Nm
135utility is expected to conform to ISO/IEC 9945-2:1993 (``POSIX'').
136.Sh HISTORY
137A
138.Nm
139utility appeared in
140.At v3 .
141