std::difftime

C++

Language

Headers

Freestanding and hosted implementations

Named requirements

Language support library

Concepts library (C++20)

Diagnostics library

Utilities library

Strings library

Containers library

Algorithms library

Iterators library

Numerics library

Input/output library

Localizations library

Regular expressions library (C++11)

Atomic operations library (C++11)

Thread support library (C++11)

Filesystem library (C++17)

Technical Specifications

Utilities library

Type support (basic types, RTTI, type traits)
Dynamic memory management
Error handling
Program utilities
Variadic functions
Library feature-test macros
Date and time
Function objects
initializer_list (C++11)
bitset
hash (C++11)
integer_sequence (C++14)
Relational operators (deprecated)
rel_ops::operator!=rel_ops::operator>rel_ops::operator<=rel_ops::operator>=
Comparisons (C++20)
strong_order weak_order partial_order strong_equal weak_equal	strong_ordering weak_ordering partial_ordering strong_equality weak_equality	is_eqis_neqis_ltis_lteqis_gtis_gteq
common_comparison_category
Common vocabulary types
pair tuple (C++11) apply (C++17) make_from_tuple (C++17)	optional (C++17) any (C++17) variant (C++17)
Swap, forward and move
swap
exchange (C++14)
forward (C++11)
move (C++11)
move_if_noexcept (C++11)
Elementary string conversions
to_chars (C++17)
from_chars (C++17)
chars_format (C++17)
Type operations
declval (C++11)
as_const (C++17)

Date and time utilities

duration (C++11) time_point (C++11) time_of_day (C++20)	clock_time_conversion (C++20) clock_cast (C++20)
Clocks
system_clock (C++11) steady_clock (C++11) high_resolution_clock (C++11) is_clock (C++20)	utc_clock (C++20) tai_clock (C++20) gps_clock (C++20) file_clock (C++20) local_t (C++20)
Calendars
day (C++20) month (C++20) year (C++20) weekday (C++20) operator/ (C++20) year_month_day (C++20) year_month_day_last (C++20) year_month_weekday (C++20) year_month_weekday_last (C++20)	weekday_indexed (C++20) weekday_last (C++20) month_day (C++20) month_day_last (C++20) month_weekday (C++20) month_weekday_last (C++20) year_month (C++20)
Time zones
tzdb (C++20) tzdb_list (C++20) get_tzdbget_tzdb_listreload_tzdbremote_version (C++20)(C++20)(C++20)(C++20)	time_zone (C++20) locate_zone (C++20) current_zone (C++20) zoned_time (C++20) link (C++20) leap (C++20)
C-style date and time

C-style date and time utilities

Functions

Time manipulation

difftime

time

clock

timespec_get (C++17)

Format conversions

asctime

ctime

strftime

wcsftime

gmtime

localtime

mktime

Constants

CLOCKS_PER_SEC

Types

tm

time_t

clock_t

timespec (C++17)

Defined in header <ctime>
double difftime( std::time_t time_end, std::time_t time_beg );

Computes difference between two calendar times as std::time_t objects (time_end - time_beg) in seconds. If time_end refers to time point before time_beg then the result is negative.

Parameters

time_beg, time_end

-

times to compare

Return value

Difference between two times in seconds.

Notes

On POSIX systems, std::time_t is measured in seconds, and difftime is equivalent to arithmetic subtraction, but C and C++ allow fractional units for time_t.

Example

Run this code

#include <iostream>
#include <ctime>

int main()
{
    std::time_t start = std::time(nullptr);
    volatile double d;

    // some time-consuming operation
    for (int n=0; n<10000; ++n) {
        for (int m=0; m<100000; ++m) {
           d += d*n*m;
        }
    }

    std::cout << "Wall time passed: "
              << std::difftime(std::time(nullptr), start) << " s.\n";
}

Output:

Wall time passed: 7 s.

See also

duration (C++11)

a time interval (class template)