Thread: More accurate time function

Using time.h when I code something like this,

Code:

#include <iostream>
#include <time.h>
#include <system.h>

int main()
{
float dif = 0; 
time_t start, end;
time(&start);
//mmmm... function...
time(&end);
dif = difftime(end,start);
std::cout << dif;
system("pause");
return 0;
}

I get an integer, such as something that takes 1.23 seconds would be listed as 1 second. is there something Im doing wrong or a more accurate function I should be using?

You can get more precision by making an unwarranted (but likely to be true) assumption about the clock_t type.

Code:

#include <iostream>
#include <ctime>

using namespace std;

int
main()
{
  double  dif; 
  clock_t start;

  start = clock();
  for (int i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) {
    cout<<"";
  }
  dif = (static_cast<double>(clock()) - start) / CLOCKS_PER_SEC;
  cout<< dif;

  return 0;
}

The unwarranted assumption is that the clock_t type can handle arithmetic operations more complex than comparison with (clock_t)-1. However, I don't know of an implementation where this isn't true. Use this approach at your own risk.