Thread: What is the unit?

Hi members,

I wrote a code that calculates the execution time of the for loop.

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <time.h>

int main( )
{
    clock_t start, stop;
    int x;
    double duration;

    start = clock();  // get number of ticks before loop

    for( x = 0; x < 10; x++ ){
      printf("Hello");
       }

    stop = clock();  // get number of ticks after loop

    // calculate time taken for loop
    duration = ( double ) ( stop - start ) / CLOCKS_PER_SEC;

    printf( "Time taken is: %f\n", duration );

    return 0;
}

What is the unit of the value that is derived in the variable 'duration'? Is it in seconds or milliseconds?

Think of it this way:
start and stop are in "clock" units.
CLOCKS_PER_SEC can be literally rewritten as "clock/s"

and if you combine them:
clock/(clock/s) = s*clock/clock = s

Therefore, "duration" is in seconds.