ftime(3)

🎀 ftime(3) 🎀 — return date and time

okay so bestie, this one's a vintage little page from the Library Functions Manual, and it's giving "we don't do this anymore" energy. ngl it's kind of iconic in a haunted-vault way. let's get into it 💅

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✨ NAME ✨

ftime — return date and time

📚 LIBRARY 📚

Standard C library (libc, -lc) 🫶

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

#include <sys/timeb.h>

[[deprecated]] int ftime(struct timeb *tp);

yes the [[deprecated]] is literally right there in the synopsis 😭 they are not being subtle about it

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

NOTE: This function is no longer provided by the GNU C library. Use clock_gettime(2) instead, bestie. fr fr.

so here's the deal ✨ this function returns the current time as seconds and milliseconds since the Epoch, 1970-01-01 00:00:00 +0000 (UTC). the time comes back to you in tp, which is declared like this:

struct timeb {
    time_t         time;
    unsigned short millitm;
    short          timezone;
    short          dstflag;
};

okay let's break down this struct like it's a group chat 🧚

• time — the number of seconds since the Epoch
• millitm — the number of milliseconds since time seconds since the Epoch
• timezone — the local timezone, measured in minutes of time west of Greenwich (and a negative value means minutes east of Greenwich, sneaky)
• dstflag — a flag that, if nonzero, indicates that Daylight Saving time applies locally during the appropriate part of the year

also, heads up 📢 POSIX.1-2001 says that the contents of the timezone and dstflag fields are unspecified — so avoid relying on them, periodt. don't build your whole personality on those two fields.

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🫶 RETURN VALUE 🫶

this function always returns 0. (POSIX.1-2001 specifies, and some systems document, a -1 error return.) 💀 so like, don't count on the error handling, bestie.

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👑 ATTRIBUTES 👑

for an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).

• Interface: ftime()
• Attribute: Thread safety
• Value: MT-Safe ✨

so yeah, thread-safe, that's the one slay this function has left 🌈

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📜 STANDARDS 📜

None. 💀 not a single one. it's giving unclaimed.

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🦋 HISTORY 🦋

so the lore is: 4.2BSD. then it got marked as LEGACY in POSIX.1-2001, and then removed in POSIX.1-2008. and then removed in glibc 2.33. it's been through the entire character arc and the funeral 😭

This function is obsolete. Don't use it. like genuinely, bestie, don't.

but if you're stuck and need a replacement 💜:

• if the time in seconds suffices, time(2) can be used
• gettimeofday(2) gives microseconds
• clock_gettime(2) gives nanoseconds but is not as widely available

so like, pick your fighter based on how much precision you actually need 🎀

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🙈 BUGS 🙈

early glibc2 is buggy and returns 0 in the millitm field 🙃 but glibc 2.1.1 is correct again. so if your milliseconds are sus, check your glibc version, iykyk.

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• gettimeofday(2)
• time(2)

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and that's the whole page, bestie 💖 this one shipped as part of Linux man-pages 6.20, dated 2025-10-29 — and it lives at ftime(3) in the Library Functions Manual. now go use clock_gettime(2) and never speak of this again 💅✨🌸