Hello all, I understand there is a “special” variable, SECONDS, which returns the number of seconds since bash invocation when referenced.
Unfortunately for tasks like profiling one’s .profile, SECONDS is too coarse a unit. Milliseconds are more useful, but getting the time in milliseconds is only possibly by calling out to date. (At least, I’m not aware of a built-in way to get either Unix epoch or elapsed time in any sub-second unit) Shelling out to date isn’t desirable as it adds significant overhead and so complicates the task of profiling. Would a patch adding a MILLISECONDS variable be considered? I would be happy to work on one, if so. I can imagine many reasons not to add a new variable, including the fact that it could change the behavior of existing scripts. It may also be the case that there’s already a method to get sub-second times without shelling out, and so I’d be grateful for pointers to any existing solutions. Thank you in advance for your thoughts, I look forward to hearing them. Alan
