TIME(3)

NAME
time - get time of day

LIBRARY
libc

SYNOPSIS
#include <time.h>
time_t
time(time_t *tloc);

DESCRIPTION
The time() function returns the value of time in seconds since 0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds, January 1, 1970, Coordinated Universal Time. If an error occurs, time() returns the value (time_t)-1.

The return value is also stored in *tloc, provided that tloc is non-null.

ERRORS
The time() function may fail for any of the reasons described in clock_gettime(2).

SEE ALSO
clock_gettime(2), gettimeofday(2), ctime(3)

STANDARDS
The time function conforms to p1003.1-2001.

HISTORY
A time() function appeared in AT&T UNIX.

BUGS
Neither isoC-99 nor p1003.1-2001 requires time() to set errno on failure; thus, it is impossible for an application to distinguish the valid time value -1 (representing the last UTC second of 1969) from the error return value.

Systems conforming to earlier versions of the C and POSIX standards (including older versions of FreeBSD) did not set *tloc in the error case.