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TIME(3)                  BSD Library Functions Manual                  TIME(3)

NAME
     time -- get time of day

LIBRARY
     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

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, without including leap seconds.  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 gettimeofday(2).

SEE ALSO
     gettimeofday(2), ctime(3)

STANDARDS
     The time function conforms to IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (``POSIX.1'').

BUGS
     Neither ISO/IEC 9899:1999 (``ISO C99'') nor IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (``POSIX.1'') 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.

HISTORY
     A time() function appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX.

BSD                              July 18, 2003                             BSD