# Method time()

Method time

  ``int` time()`
  ``int` time(`int(1..1)` `one`)`
  ``float` time(`int(2..)` `t`)`

Description

  This function returns the number of seconds since 00:00:00 UTC, 1 Jan 1970.

  The second syntax does not query the system for the current time, instead the last time value used by the pike process is returned again. It avoids a system call, and thus is slightly faster, but can be wildly inaccurate. Pike queries the time internally when a thread has waited for something, typically in sleep or in a backend (see Pike.Backend).

  The third syntax can be used to measure time more precisely than one second. It returns how many seconds have passed since `t`. The precision of this function varies from system to system.

See also

  ctime(), localtime(), mktime(), gmtime(), System.gettimeofday, gethrtime