| The GNU C Library | www.imodulo.com · 2003-04-05 | ||
| [ Software | Documentation | Contact ] |
This section describes facilities for keeping track of calendar time. Time Basics.
The GNU C library represents calendar time three ways:
Simple time (the time_t data type) is a compact representation, typically giving the number of seconds of elapsed time since some implementation-specific base time.
There is also a "high-resolution time" representation. Like simple time, this represents a calendar time as an elapsed time since a base time, but instead of measuring in whole seconds, it uses a struct timeval data type, which includes fractions of a second. Use this time representation instead of simple time when you need greater precision.
Local time or broken-down time (the struct tm data type) represents a calendar time as a set of components specifying the year, month, and so on in the Gregorian calendar, for a specific time zone. This calendar time representation is usually used only to communicate with people.
| © Free Software Foundation, Inc. |