FUNCTION::JIFFIES(3stap)

💖 FUNCTION::JIFFIES 💖

okay bestie, welcome to 3stap — the SystemTap tapset manual — and today's main character is a little function called jiffies. it's giving "tiny but mighty", fr fr. ✨

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🌸 NAME 🌸

function::jiffies — the kernel jiffies count, aka the heartbeat counter of your kernel 💓

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

jiffies:long()

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✨ ARGUMENTS ✨

None. literally zero. she takes no arguments, she needs no arguments, she simply is. 👑

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so this function returns the value of the kernel jiffies variable. that's it. that's the whole job. and she ate. 💅

here's the tea though: that value gets incremented periodically by timer interrupts 🕰️ — so it just keeps ticking up on its own, like your screen time. and lowkey, it may wrap around a 32-bit or 64-bit boundary 😭 so don't be out here treating it like it'll grow forever, because it won't. it wraps. it's a whole cycle, it's giving circular.

if you wanna know what a jiffy actually is in this context, see HZ. 🫶

no cap: that wrap-around thing is real. plan accordingly bestie. 💀

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• tapset::timestamp(3stap) ⭐

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and that's the whole page, you're welcome!! 🍓

this lil rewrite came to you courtesy of the SystemTap Tapset Reference, version vibes from September 2026 — she's a September girlie 🎀✨ thanks for reading, mwah, bye bestie!! 🫶💖