Help with time in C, how do you even do this?

[omega666]

in my program i want to get the current time when the program starts, then be able to get the current time anytime later, I don't care how the format of the time is, but the thing is i want to be able to compare the times to get a difference in terms of minutes where it can be a integer or float.

I have a auction type of program, where items get expires after a certain amount of time, so i want to know how much time passed at anytime i call a function or something, so i can determine if a item needs to be expired.

How would i do this?

Also when i create an item, i need to give it a parameter (for the amount of time it is available) , how should i give it, for most items it will be 5 min., so i figure putting a 5 is ok?

[nonoob]

#include <time.h>
...

time_t beginning, current;

/* at start of program */
time(&beginning); /* save the current time */

/* sometime during the execution of program */
time(&current); /* what is time now? */

/* current - beginning is the number of seconds elapsed */