iv_time(3)

✨ iv_time β€” ivykis time handling, but make it make sense ✨

okay bestie, welcome to the iv_time(3) page of the ivykis programmer's manual πŸ’– this is the little corner of ivykis that handles time, and it's genuinely iconic once you get it, i promise.


🌸 NAME 🌸

iv_now, iv_validate_now, iv_invalidate_now β€” ivykis time handling. that's the whole squad. three besties, one job: knowing what time it is πŸ•


πŸŽ€ SYNOPSIS πŸŽ€

#include <iv.h>

extern struct timespec iv_now;
void iv_validate_now(void);
void iv_invalidate_now(void);

πŸ’… DESCRIPTION πŸ’…

so, iv_now is a global variable that represents a monotonic timer. that's it, that's the vibe. it's the clock everybody in ivykis is looking at πŸ‘‘

BUT. and this is the important part, no cap β€” the contents of iv_now might be stale 😭 like, it's not magically updating itself every nanosecond, she's just sitting there holding whatever value she was last given.

that's where iv_validate_now comes in 🫢 calling iv_validate_now makes sure that the current contents of iv_now are up-to-date. think of it as the "hey bestie, catch up" button ✨

and then there's iv_invalidate_now, which is called to invalidate the currently cached time πŸ’€ she doesn't refresh it, she just marks it as no-longer-trustworthy, like closing the group chat so nobody sees the old messages.

heads up, this one matters: you should call iv_invalidate_now after any operation that takes a significant amount of wall clock time. literally any. if you did something slow and then kept trusting the old iv_now, that's giving stale-data main character energy and we don't do that πŸ™ˆ

πŸ¦‹ SEE ALSO πŸ¦‹


and that's the page, bestie πŸ’œ go forth and validate your now. this was ivykis, dated 2003-03-29 β€” slay, periodt, and may your timers always be monotonic πŸŒˆπŸ’–βœ¨