Unix in a Nutshell, 4th Edition

Name

time

Synopsis

    time [option] command [arguments]

Execute a command with optional arguments and print the total elapsed time, execution time, process execution time, and system time of the process (all in seconds). Times are printed on standard error. time is a built-in command in all of the Bash, Korn, and C shells. This entry describes the external command that lives in the filesystem.

Common Option

-p, --portability

Print the real, user, and system times with a single space separating the title and the value, instead of a tab. (Mac OS X uses a tab.)

GNU/Linux Options

-a, --append

Used with -o to append the output to file instead of overwriting it.

-fformat, --format=format

Specify the output format. Overrides any format specified in the TIME environment variable.

-ofile, --output=file

Send the output from time to the specified file instead of to standard error. If file exists, it is overwritten.

-v, --verbose

Give verbose output, providing all available information.

-V, --version

Print version information and exit.

Mac OS X Option

-l

Print the contents of the process’s struct rusage structure. See getrusage(2).