TIME(1)

📦 version 1.053, in alpine 3.24

🌸 NAME 🌸

okay bestie, welcome to time(1) from the User Contributed Perl Documentation 💅 — this is the page for the command that times the execution of a command ✨

time — times the execution of a command 🎀

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

time command [argument ...]

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

So here's the vibe: time prints to standard error the elapsed time during the execution of a command, the time spent in the system, and the time spent in execution of the command ⏱️💖

That's it. That's the whole job. It's giving “quiet observer who knows exactly what you did last summer” energy 👀

💀 BUGS 💀

okay so listen, there are a couple things to know, and I'm gonna say them clearly because accuracy matters 😭

  • time has a resolution of seconds for real elapsed time. just seconds, bestie. not milliseconds, not microseconds.
  • The accuracy of time is suspect, especially for small time measurements. like, don't trust it to be super precise when the thing you're timing is tiny 🙈
  • Some implementations return 126 if command is found but cannot be invoked. yes, found but not invokable is its own little cursed situation 💀
bestie please don't use this for tiny precision timing and then act surprised when the numbers are not giving microscopic accuracy. that's not the assignment, and the page literally warns you 🫶

🚪 EXIT STATUS 🚪

If the command is successfully invoked, then time returns the exit status of the command 👑 otherwise it returns 127. periodt 💅

This program is copyright by dkulp 1999.

This program is free and open software. You may use, copy, modify, distribute and sell this program — and any modified variants — in any way you wish, provided you do not restrict others to do the same 🌈💖

made with 💖 under perl v5.42.2, dated 2026-02-15 — and that's the whole TIME(1) page, bestie, bye! 🫶✨

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