How to display elapsed time in seconds (C program)?

[rhen18]

i wrote a program w/c requires the user to answer addition drills.
my problem is i have to display the time it took the user to answer the drills.
Any codes to suggest?
Help would be much appreciated!
Happy new Year!

[mac11]

You can grab the current time using the function 'time()' (see http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/clibrary/ctime/time/ for reference)

I'd use it as follows:

time_t start = 0;
time_t end = 0;
time_t elapsed = 0;
 
start = time(NULL);  // grab start time
// show the question
 
while(questions_not_done); // do whatever until the questions are all over
 
end = time(NULL);  // grab the end time
elapsed = start - end;  // compute elapsed time
// now show the elapsed time

[Airslash]

my trick only works in the Windows Operating system as far as I know, but I always use the ::GetTickCount() whenever I need to monitor timeframes between actions.

This function get's the amount of cpu ticks that have elapsed and can be used to express time intervals in miliseconds whereas time() can only do it till seconds.

#include <windows.h>
 
// some code
int start_point = ::GetTickCount();
// do whatever work here that needs to be monitored
int elapsed_time = ::GetTickCount() - start_point;
 

[rhen18]

thanks! that worked!
i modified some things though.
like i equated elapsed to end - start instead of start - end.
and i declared the variable elapsed as int because otherwise i get a warning when i compile.
other than that, it worked! so thanks very much!

[mac11]

end - start instead of start - end.

Ha ha, what a silly little mistake I made. Good catch!