Timekeeping [Was: Re: cvs commit: src/usr.bin/vmstat vmstat.c src/usr.bin/w w.c]

[Garance A Drosihn]

At 7:12 PM +0200 10/21/05, Andre Oppermann wrote:
>Marcel Moolenaar wrote:
>  >
>  > The question therefore is: which definition of uptime do we
>  > try to implement?
>
>The question is "up and running" since when?  Since the last
>interruption (suspend or ddb) or since the last initialization
>of the kernel (boot or reboot)?  IMO the latter minus the former
>in SI seconds.

For what it is worth, I think both of those measures might be
useful for people to know.  If both are to be available, I think
I would call uptime "the time since the most-recent system
initialization", and call the other value something like
"waketime".

I don't have a strong preference for the specific names to use,
but I do think both values can be valuable.  So pick one as
uptime, and pick a new name for the second one, and add an
option to the `uptime' command to report both values.  IMO.

-- 
Garance Alistair Drosehn            =   gad at gilead.netel.rpi.edu
Senior Systems Programmer           or  gad at freebsd.org
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute    or  drosih at rpi.edu