HP-UX Reference (11i v3 07/02) - 1 User Commands N-Z (vol 2)

time(1) time(1)

NAME

time - time a command

SYNOPSIS

time command

time [-p] utility [argument ...]

DESCRIPTION

When a speciﬁed command or utility completes execution,

time prints the elapsed time during the com-

mand or utility, the time spent in the system, and the time spent executing the command or utility. Times

are reported in seconds.

Execution time can depend on the performance of the memory in which the program is running.

The times are printed to standard error.

Note that the shell also has a keyword

time that times an entire pipeline if used anywhere in the pipeline.

This action is different than the

time command which times a particular command if used in a pipeline.

Options

time recognizes the following options:

command

The command to be executed and timed.

-p Writes the timing statistics to standard error.

utility The name of a utility to be invoked and timed. If the utility operand names any of the shell

special built-in utilities, the time results are undeﬁned. See csh(1) and ksh(1) for informa-

tion about special built-in utilities.

argument

Any string that is an argument to the utility.