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steady_clock struct

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Represents a clock that is never adjusted and that moves forward at a uniform rate.

Syntax

struct steady_clock;

Remarks

A steady_clock is a monotonic clock, which means that the time it reports only moves forward. The value returned by a call to now is always less than or equal to the value that is returned by the next call to now.

A steady_clock ensures that the time between ticks is constant, making it better for measuring intervals than using a system clock. The system clock provides wall-clock time. The problem with using wall-clock time to measure elapsed time is that wall-clock time may get modified while measuring a time interval. It could be modified by synchronizing with another clock over the network, by a transition to daylight savings time, and so on. A steady_clock isn't subject to these adjustments, making it the preferred way to keep track of elapsed time.

high_resolution_clock is a typedef for steady_clock. On Windows, steady_clock wraps the QueryPerformanceCounter function.

Example

#include <chrono> 
#include <thread>
#include <iostream>

using namespace std::chrono;

int main()
{
    auto begin = steady_clock::now();
    std::this_thread::sleep_for(std::chrono::seconds(1));
    auto end = steady_clock::now();
    
    std::cout << "Elapsed seconds:      "
        << duration_cast<seconds>(end - begin).count()
        << "s\n";

    std::cout << "Elapsed milliseconds: "
        << duration_cast<milliseconds>(end - begin).count()
        << "ms\n";

    std::cout << "Elapsed microseconds: "
        << duration_cast<microseconds>(end - begin).count()
        << "us\n";

    std::cout << "Elapsed nanoseconds:  "
        << duration_cast<nanoseconds>(end - begin).count()
        << " ns\n";

    return 0;
}

Elapsed seconds:      1s
Elapsed milliseconds: 1007ms
Elapsed microseconds: 1007266us
Elapsed nanoseconds:  1007266700 ns

Convenience type aliases

Name Description
steady_clock::duration In Microsoft's implementation, it's a synonym for nanoseconds, which is defined as duration<long long, nano>. It represents a duration of time measured in billionths of a second.
steady_clock::period In Microsoft's implementation, it's a synonym for nano, which is defined as std::ratio<1i64, 1000000000i64> . It represents the time in seconds (one billionth of a second) between each tick in the duration.
steady_clock::rep A synonym for long long, which is the type used in the Microsoft implementation to represent the number of clock ticks in a steady_clock::duration
steady_clock::time_point A synonym for time_point<steady_clock>. Used to represent a time_point for this clock.

Public functions

Function Description
now Returns the current time from the steady_clock as a time_point value.

Public constants

Name Description
steady_clock::is_steady Holds true. A steady_clock is steady. That means you can use this clock to get the time before an event, the time after an event, and reliably subtract them to get the duration of the event because the clock won't be adjusted during that time.

Requirements

Header: <chrono>

Namespace: std::chrono

See also

<chrono>
file_clock class
high_resolution_clock
local_t struct
system_clock struct
tai_clock class
utc_clock class
Header Files Reference