[Nottingham] Time

[martin]

On Tue, 2007-01-30 at 17:48 +0000, Joshua Lock wrote:
> Ok, so I'm trying to use time for some performance metrics and while  
> it's quite possible to use the output to work out what performs more  
> efficiently it'd be nicer if I actually understood the difference  
> between the three different time outputs?
> 
> Can anyone help me out? I've read the man page and I'm fully aware  
> that real is the actual amount of time but the page is a little vague  
> on what user and system actually measure?
> An initial guess is that system measures things like disk i/o. Which  
> would explain why after the first of 5 consecutive runs it's consistent.
> 
> Anyone care to help me out?

I would like somebody else to back this up or refute it because I'm not
certain, but I believe system represents cpu time spent in kernel code
and user represents cpu time spent in userland.

-- 
Martin.