It's About Time: The C++ Time Library

1. Introduction: C programmers often deal with time in their programs. For example, they may need to obtain the current time from the host operating system; or, they may need to measure the execution time of a critical loop. When they do so, however, the resulting code is likely to be difficult to debug, read, and maintain. The reason is simple: the 'time' facilities provided by the standard C libraries and UNIX(R) system calls are seldom at the appropriate level of abstraction required by the programmer to express the notions of time in a clear and comprehensible fashion.