CPU time (or CPU usage, process time) is the amount of time for which a central processing unit (CPU) was used for processing instructions of a computer program, as opposed to, for example, waiting for input/output (I/O) operations.
The CPU time is often measured in clock ticks or seconds. CPU time is also mentioned as percentage of the CPU's capacity at any given time on multi-tasking environment. That helps in figuring out how a CPU’s computational power is being shared among multiple computer programs.
In contrast, elapsed real time (or simply real time, or wall clock time) is the time taken from the start of a computer program until the end as measured by an ordinary clock. Elapsed real time includes I/O time and all other types of waits incurred by the program.
Read more about CPU Time: Total CPU Time, CPU Time and Elapsed Real Time
Famous quotes containing the word time:
“Her heavenly form
Angelic, but more soft and feminine,
Her graceful innocence, her every air
Of gesture or least action, overawed
His malice, and with rapine sweet bereaved
His fierceness of the fierce intent it brought.
That space of Evil One abstracted stood
From his own evil, and for the time remained
Stupidly good, of enmity disarmed,”
—John Milton (1608–1674)