xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/time/time.1 (revision 7660b554bc59a07be0431c17e0e33815818baa69)
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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.  Times are printed in minutes, hours,
75etc. as appropriate.
76.It Fl l
77The contents of the
78.Em rusage
79structure are printed as well.
80.It Fl o Ar file
81Write the output to
82.Ar file
83instead of stderr.  If
84.Ar file
85exists and the
86.Fl a
87flag is not specified, the file will be overwritten.
88.It Fl p
89Makes
90.Nm
91output POSIX.2 compliant (each time is printed on its own line).
92.El
93.Pp
94Some shells may provide a builtin
95.Nm
96command which is similar or identical to this utility.
97Consult the
98.Xr builtin 1
99manual page.
100.Sh ENVIRONMENT
101The
102.Ev PATH
103environment variable is used to locate the requested
104.Ar utility
105if the name contains no
106.Ql /
107characters.
108.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
109If
110.Ar utility
111could be timed successfully, its exit status is returned.
112If
113.Ar utility
114terminated abnormally, a warning message is output to stderr.
115If the
116.Ar utility
117was found but could not be run, the exit status is 126.
118If no
119.Ar utility
120could be found at all, the exit status is 127.
121If
122.Nm
123encounters any other error, the exit status is between 1 and 125
124included.
125.Sh SEE ALSO
126.Xr builtin 1 ,
127.Xr csh 1 ,
128.Xr getrusage 2 ,
129.Xr wait 2
130.Sh STANDARDS
131The
132.Nm
133utility is expected to conform to ISO/IEC 9945-2:1993 (``POSIX'').
134.Sh HISTORY
135A
136.Nm
137utility appeared in
138.At v3 .
139