Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!cica!ctrsol!ginosko!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.wanted
Subject: Re: Timestamp
Message-ID: <2311@auspex.auspex.com>
Date: 29 Jul 89 20:59:27 GMT
References: <1595@stl.stc.co.uk> <12687@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <2247@auspex.auspex.com> <13100@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Reply-To: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 24

>>1) "somewhat standard" is the key word here.  In the UNIX world, it's in V7,
>>   and in 4.xBSD, but not in System V.
>
>What a miserable pity.  No wonder it's not in POSIX.

No, but the "times()" that returns clock ticks since some arbitrary
point in the past is in POSIX, so if all you want is to get the time
difference between two events in clock ticks, you can do that. 

>Indeed.  Given, however, that it is documented and understood
>that, in effect, the LSB's of the millitm field (the
>"more-precise interval") do not necessarily wiggle, it is
>extremely unfortunate that such a function is not standard.

Well, "times()" is standard; if you want wall-clock time (as opposed to
deltas in wall-clock time) with higher than one-second resolution,
you'll probably have to wait for the POSIX real-time standard (and, of
course, set your machine's clock to whatever your national wall-clock
time standard is...).

>(Why in the world did SYSV drop ftime?)

They may never have picked it up in the first place, going with
"times()" instead.