NAME¶

std::time - std::time

Synopsis¶

Defined in header <ctime>
std::time_t time( std::time_t* arg );

Returns the current calendar time encoded as a std::time_t object, and also stores
it in the object pointed to by arg, unless arg is a null pointer.

Parameters¶

arg - pointer to a std::time_t object to store the time, or a null pointer

Return value¶

Current calendar time encoded as std::time_t object on success, (std::time_t)(-1) on
error. If arg is not null, the return value is also stored in the object pointed to
by arg.

Notes¶

The encoding of calendar time in std::time_t is unspecified, but most systems
conform to the POSIX specification and return a value of integral type holding 86400
times the number of calendar days since the Epoch plus the number of seconds that
have passed since the last midnight UTC. Most notably, POSIX time does not (and can
not) take leap seconds into account, so that this integral value is not equal to the
number of S.I. seconds that have passed since the epoch, but rather is reduced with
the number of leap seconds that have occurred since the epoch. Implementations in
which std::time_t is a 32-bit signed integer (many historical implementations) fail
in the year 2038.

Example¶

// Run this code

#include <ctime>
#include <iostream>

int main()
{
std::time_t result = std::time(nullptr);
std::cout << std::asctime(std::localtime(&result))
<< result << " seconds since the Epoch\n";
}

Possible output:¶

Wed Sep 21 10:27:52 2011
1316615272 seconds since the Epoch

See also¶

timespec_get returns the calendar time in seconds and nanoseconds based on a given
(C++17) time base
(function)
localtime converts time since epoch to calendar time expressed as local time
(function)
converts time since epoch to calendar time expressed as Universal
gmtime Coordinated Time
(function)
system_clock wall clock time from the system-wide realtime clock
(C++11) (class)
C documentation for
time