10+ time Command Examples in Linux

DESCRIPTION

The time command runs the specified program command with the given arguments. When command finishes, time writes a message to standard output giving timing statistics about this program run.

The utility ‘time’ takes a program name as an input and displays information about the resources used by the program. Also, if the command exists with non-zero status, this utility displays a warning message and exit status.

SYNOPSIS

time [options] command [arguments…]

OPTIONS

-f FORMAT, –format=FORMAT
Specify output format, possibly overriding the format specified in the environment variable TIME.
-p, –portability
Use the portable output format.
When the -p option is given the (portable) output format
real %e
user %U
sys %S
is used.
-o FILE, –output=FILE
Do not send the results to stderr, but overwrite the specified file.
-a, –append
(Used together with -o.) Do not overwrite but append.
-v, –verbose
Give very verbose output about all the program knows about.

The format string

The format is interpreted in the usual printf-like way. Ordinary characters are directly copied, tab, newline and backslash are escaped using \t, \n and \\, a percent sign is represented by %%, and otherwise % indicates a conversion. The program time will always add a trailing newline itself. The conversions follow.

Time

%E
Elapsed real time (in [hours:]minutes:seconds).
%e
(Not in tcsh.) Elapsed real time (in seconds).
%S
Total number of CPU-seconds that the process spent in kernel mode.
%U
Total number of CPU-seconds that the process spent in user mode.
%P
Percentage of the CPU that this job got, computed as (%U + %S) / %E.

Memory

%M
Maximum resident set size of the process during its lifetime, in Kbytes.
%t
(Not in tcsh.) Average resident set size of the process, in Kbytes.
%K
Average total (data+stack+text) memory use of the process, in Kbytes.
%D
Average size of the process’s unshared data area, in Kbytes.
%p
(Not in tcsh.) Average size of the process’s unshared stack space, in Kbytes.
%X
Average size of the process’s shared text space, in Kbytes.
%Z
(Not in tcsh.) System’s page size, in bytes. This is a per-system constant, but varies between systems.
%F
Number of major page faults that occurred while the process was running. These are faults where the page has to be read in from disk.
%R
Number of minor, or recoverable, page faults. These are faults for pages that are not valid but which have not yet been claimed by other virtual pages. Thus the data in the page is still valid but the system tables must be updated.
%W
Number of times the process was swapped out of main memory.
%c
Number of times the process was context-switched involuntarily (because the time slice expired).
%w
Number of waits: times that the program was context-switched voluntarily, for instance while waiting for an I/O operation to complete.

I/O

%I
Number of file system inputs by the process.
%O
Number of file system outputs by the process.
%r
Number of socket messages received by the process.
%s
Number of socket messages sent by the process.
%k
Number of signals delivered to the process.
%C
(Not in tcsh.) Name and command line arguments of the command being timed.
%x
(Not in tcsh.) Exit status of the command.

EXAMPLES

1. Simple Example

Displaying resources used by ls command.

$ /usr/bin/time ls
abc	 Desktop    examples.desktop  Music	Templates
abc.txt  Documents  file1.txt	      Pictures	Ubuntu One
abv	 Downloads  file2.txt	      Public	Videos
0.00user 0.00system 0:00.00elapsed 0%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 992maxresident)k
0inputs+0outputs (0major+310minor)pagefaults 0swaps

2. Using a format

Displaying resources used in a specific format by ls command. For format see above.

$ /usr/bin/time -f "\t%U user,\t%S system,\t%x status" ls
abc      Desktop    examples.desktop  Music     Templates
abc.txt  Documents  file1.txt         Pictures  Ubuntu One
abv      Downloads  file2.txt         Public    Videos
	0.00 user,	0.00 system,	0 status

NOTE : Why /usr/bin/time? (Instead of just time)

Lets not use /usr/bin/time and use ‘time’ instead.

$ time -f "\t%U user,\t%S system,\t%x status" date
-f: command not found 
 
real	0m0.255s
user	0m0.230s
sys	0m0.030s

As seen from the output above, the ‘time’ command when used without the complete path (/usr/bin/time) spits out an error regarding the ‘-f’ flag. When ‘time’ command is executed without the complete path (/usr/bin/time), then its the built-in ‘time’ command of the bash shell that is executed.

3. Write Time Statistics Output to a File using -o option

The -o option is used for directing the output to a file.

$ /usr/bin/time -o time.txt sleep 2
 
$ cat time.txt
0.00user 0.00system 0:02.00elapsed 0%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 2288maxresident)k
0inputs+0outputs (0major+175minor)pagefaults 0swaps

4. Display Percentage of CPU used

Displaying % of CPU used according to its format and searching the program using ‘find’.

$ /usr/bin/time -f "\t%P CPU Percentage" find / -name my-program.sh
/root/my-program.sh
        82% CPU Percentage

5. Display Total Number of CPU-seconds

Displaying Total number of CPU seconds according to its format and searching the program using ‘find’.

$ /usr/bin/time -f "\t%S CPU-seconds" find / -name my-program.sh
/root/my-program.sh
        0.35 CPU-seconds

6. Display Elapsed Real Time in Seconds – %e

This option gives elapsed real time (i.e. wall clock) used by the process, in seconds.

$ /usr/bin/time -f "\t%e Elapsed Real Time (secs)" sleep 2
        2.00 Elapsed Real Time (secs)

Here, command output shows that sleep command execution elapsed till 2 seconds.

7. Display Program Name and Command Line Arguments

Displaying Program Name and Command Line Arguments according to its format and searching the program using ‘find’.

$ /usr/bin/time -f "\t%C (Program Name and Command Line)" find / -name my-program.sh
/root/my-program.sh
        find / -name my-program.sh test_time (Program Name and Command Line)

8. Display System Page Size in Bytes

%z format is used for the System Page Size.

$ /usr/bin/time -f "\t%Z System Page Size (bytes)" sleep 2
        4096 System Page Size (bytes)

9. Display Number of Context Switches

%c format is used for Context Switches.

$ /usr/bin/time -f "\t%c Context Switches" find / -name my-program.sh
/root/my-program.sh
        254 Context Switches

10. Display Exit Status of a Command

%x is used to display exit status.

$ /usr/bin/time -f "\t%x Exit Status" top12
/usr/bin/time: cannot run top12: No such file or directory
        127 Exit Status