milliseconds from solaris command line

Question

This gnu date command lets me get milliseconds this way:

date +%M:%S.%N;

but this command doesn't work on solaris... any ideas?

jlliagre · Accepted Answer · 2010-08-24T14:15:23.113

5

This "shell script" should display milliseconds:

#!/bin/ksh
if [ ! -x /var/tmp/time_ms ]
then
    cat > /tmp/time_ms.c << %
    #include <sys/time.h>
    main()
    {
        struct timeval tv;
        gettimeofday(&tv,(void*)0);
        printf("%d.%d\n",tv.tv_sec,tv.tv_usec/1000);
    }
%
    PATH=$PATH:/usr/sfw gcc /tmp/time_ms.c -o /var/tmp/time_ms
fi
/var/tmp/time_ms

Of course, you can relocate time_ms in your PATH and call it directly after the first run. That will provide a faster solution than gnu date or any perl/whatever script.

edited Aug 24 '10 at 14:15

answered Aug 20 '10 at 20:31

jlliagre

14,179

hey hey - this looks like a nice idea, jiliagre. However, I'm getting this error: ./time_ms.sh[2]: syntax error at line 4 : `<<' unmatched any ideas? – andersonbd1 Aug 24 '10 at 13:23
I fixed my script for it to work with legacy ksh and others shells. It was working fine with ksh93 so I didn't notice. – jlliagre Aug 24 '10 at 14:16
yep - very cool. – andersonbd1 Aug 25 '10 at 17:53

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Sep 02 '12 at 05:12

2

The most likely explanation is that Solaris doesn't use GNU date or doesn't have the latest version. The Solaris man page for date doesn't mention the %N formatting option. The GNU coreutils docs for time conversion specifiers for date specifically say that %N is a GNU extension (oh -- it's nanoseconds, not milliseconds).

If you need the milliseconds, your best bet is to download the latest GNU coreutils and install it under /usr/local (or /opt/local if you prefer). To get the proper version of date, you either configure your PATH so that /usr/local/bin comes before /usr/bin or use a full path to /usr/local/bin/date in your script.

edited Sep 02 '12 at 05:12

alanc

1,074

answered Aug 20 '10 at 14:20

Doug Harris

27,811

I'm not the sysadmin. Is there no other solaris command to do it? – andersonbd1 Aug 20 '10 at 14:29
I'm pretty sure you can install coreutils under your home directory. You can also try Aaron Digulla's perl suggestion. – Doug Harris Aug 20 '10 at 14:31
What do you get if you type this in bash: type -a date? – Doug Harris Aug 20 '10 at 14:34
I'm trying to put coreutils in my home directory now...
```
    $ type -a date
    date is /usr/bin/date
    date is /bin/date
```
– andersonbd1 Aug 20 '10 at 14:39
1

I tried this as well. I did ./configure --prefix=/home/myuser. Coreutils files were installed in bin, lib and share subdirectories under my home directory. – Doug Harris Aug 20 '10 at 14:53

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 20 '10 at 15:12

If you're measuring the time taken by a part of the script, you can put this part of the script in a function and call time myfunction. You can also call the times builtin before and after the section you want to time, but doing the arithmetic yourself is a bit of a pain.

score 1 · Answer 4 · edited Jul 15 '14 at 14:35

1

#!/usr/bin/bash

TSP_MSEC=`perl -MTime::HiRes -e 'print int(1000 * Time::HiRes::gettimeofday),"\n"'`
MSEC=`echo $TSP_MSEC | cut -c11-13`

TSP=`date +%d.%m.20%y" "%H:%M:%S.$MSEC`
echo $TSP

Result: 15.07.2014 16:10:01.260

edited Jul 15 '14 at 14:35

Jens Erat

17,897

answered Jul 15 '14 at 14:12

Dr. Michael Bobsien

11

Aaron Digulla · Answer 5 · 2010-08-20T14:49:05.823

0

Perl is almost everywhere. Use:

perl -e 'print time()*1000;print "\n";'

If you really need millisecond accuracy, try the Time:HiRes module.

[EDIT] Alternatively, compile a small C program which calls gettimeofday() and prints the result.

edited Aug 20 '10 at 14:49

answered Aug 20 '10 at 14:24

Aaron Digulla

7,045

I'm measuring milliseconds inside of a bash script. I'm guessing that tarting the perl interpreter would take enough time to throw off my calculations? – andersonbd1 Aug 20 '10 at 14:31
1

Then use gettimeofday() directly. Or the time command for that matter. – Aaron Digulla Aug 20 '10 at 14:49

milliseconds from solaris command line

5 Answers5