How to use ftime() to get system time in seconds and milliseconds

http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007908775/xsh/systimeb.h.html

Wow that was quick thanks evilrix!

Ok thats compiling and running fine now but I just want to print seconds and milliseconds. In the timeb structure millitm is an unsigned short and seconds is part of time_t.

How do you print these using printf? something like this?:

printf("Seconds:%d,Milliseconds:%d",time_t,timebuffer.millitm);

>> Remove leading underscore from timeb and ftime and it compiles.

That really depends on your compiler. My compiler (gcc) has the versions with the underscore too.

Check whether you have the <sys/timeb.h> header, and how it defines the struct needed for the ftime function.


Note that you shouldn't use the ftime function, but should use time instead (if seconds are enough).

        http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/clibrary/ctime/time.html

If you need micro-seconds, then take a look at gettimeofday :

        http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/000095399/functions/gettimeofday.html

It is better to use clock() function instead. It returns the time in milliseconds.
Example:
  clock_t start, finish;
  double duration;

  start = clock();
  while( i-- )  ;
  finish = clock();
  duration = (double)(finish - start) / CLOCKS_PER_SEC;
CLOCKS_PER_SEC usually is 1000 it means 1 clock = 1 millisecond.

Since millitm is an unsigned short you probably want to use %u.

>> That really depends on your compiler. My compiler (gcc) has the versions with the underscore too.
True, but it was a suggestion to try not a mandate :)

The purpose for this is to be able to get the time when a MIDI event has happened and then write it to a file for playback.

First I'd have to get the time of the start of the program. When a MIDI event happens I get the time again and work out how long after the start that was and write it to a file along with the MIDI info (note number and velocity). Then when I play it back I get the start time and then play each note after the correct amount of time has passed.

How do I access and display the number of seconds?!

I can print the number of milliseconds like this:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/timeb.h>
#include <time.h>
 
int main( void )
{
	struct timeb timebuffer;
	
	ftime( &timebuffer );
	
	printf( "nMilliseconds:%hu\n",timebuffer.millitm);
	return 0;
}

                                              

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>> It is better to use clock() function instead. It returns the time in milliseconds.

Yes, but not since the epoch ;) So, it's not usable for 00hubblemp ...


Btw, the reason I said this earlier :

>> Note that you shouldn't use the ftime function

is because the ftime function is obsolete now.

How do I access the number of seconds?

timebuffer.time ?

What data type is it?

>> How do I access the number of seconds?

So, you're not considering what I said about ftime being obsolete ?

Solved with this code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/timeb.h>
#include <time.h>
 
int main( void )
{
	struct timeb timebuffer;
	
	ftime( &timebuffer );
	
	printf( "Seconds:%d\nMilliseconds:%hu\n",timebuffer.time, timebuffer.millitm);
	return 0;
}

                                              

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Even though ftime() is obsolete I am only doing this is a 1st year university assignment, this isn't going to be used by the public, just marked by my tutor. Everyone else decided to use usleep() in a while loop to work out  time but this way is far easier to use especially for polyphonic sequencing.