[NTLUG:Discuss] let me try that again - time

[terry]

Chris Cox wrote:

> Fred James wrote:
>
>> It appears that I wasn't clear enough on my first request, so please 
>> forgive me for trying again.
>> I know what "time" and "date" are, and what their intended uses are.
>> I really do want to use "time" - unless someone can suggest something 
>> better for the purpose.
>> The problem I am having is syntax - no matter how much I read the 
>> man(ual) pages, or which user I am at the moment, I cannot seem to 
>> get "time" to recognise any of its own options or formating.  Right 
>> off the bat, I would say that means that either (a) the man(ual) 
>> pages lie, or (b) I don't understand something.  From past experience 
>> I would vote for "b".
>> What I believe I need is a little instruction on the syntax of 
>> "time", or a pointer toward documentation on same.
>> Thank you in advance for any help you may be able to offer.
>>
>
> The time on SuSE has limited formatting options that mainly have
> to do with locale (there's a special POSIX locale option to get
> time to display in POSIX format... but other than that.. nothing...
> apart from language locale time specifics).

Time [v 1.7] on my Mandrake system only has one option, and that it -p
 From man (1) time:
=======================================================
OPTION
       -p     When in the POSIX locale, use the precise traditional format
                   "real %f\nuser %f\nsys %f\n"
              (with numbers in seconds) where the number of  decimals  
in  the
              output  for  %f  is unspecified but is sufficient to 
express the
              clock tick accuracy, and at least one.
=======================================================

Just for grins, let's see how my Mandrake machine shows CPU time usage 
for the command date, (with and without -p option):

$ time -p date
Fri May 30 10:27:02 CDT 2003
real 0.03
user 0.00
sys 0.02

$ time date
Fri May 30 10:27:09 CDT 2003
0.01user 0.00system 0:00.01elapsed 66%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k
0inputs+0outputs (173major+28minor)pagefaults 0swaps

-- 
Registered Linux User #188099
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