TIME(1) 		  BSD General Commands Manual		       TIME(1)

NAME
     time — time command execution

SYNOPSIS
     time [-al] [-h | -p] [-o file] utility [argument ...]

DESCRIPTION
     The time utility executes and times the specified utility.  After the
     utility finishes, time writes to the standard error stream, (in seconds):
     the total time elapsed, the time used to execute the utility process and
     the time consumed by system overhead.

     The following options are available:

     -a      If the -o flag is used, append to the specified file rather than
	     overwriting it.  Otherwise, this option has no effect.

     -h      Print times in a human friendly format.  Times are printed in
	     minutes, hours, etc. as appropriate.

     -l      The contents of the rusage structure are printed as well.

     -o file
	     Write the output to file instead of stderr.  If file exists and
	     the -a flag is not specified, the file will be overwritten.

     -p      Makes time output POSIX.2 compliant (each time is printed on its
	     own line).

     Some shells may provide a builtin time command which is similar or iden‐
     tical to this utility.  Consult the builtin(1) manual page.

     If time receives a SIGINFO (see the status argument for stty(1)) signal,
     the current time the given command is running will be written to the
     standard output.

ENVIRONMENT
     The PATH environment variable is used to locate the requested utility if
     the name contains no ‘/’ characters.

EXIT STATUS
     If utility could be timed successfully, its exit status is returned.  If
     utility terminated abnormally, a warning message is output to stderr.  If
     the utility was found but could not be run, the exit status is 126.  If
     no utility could be found at all, the exit status is 127.	If time
     encounters any other error, the exit status is between 1 and 125
     included.

SEE ALSO
     builtin(1), csh(1), getrusage(2), wait(2)

STANDARDS
     The time utility is expected to conform to ISO/IEC 9945-2:1993
     (``POSIX'').

HISTORY
     A time utility appeared in Version 3 AT&T UNIX.

BSD				 May 14, 2006				   BSD