I want to subtract two gettimeofday instances, and present the answer in milliseconds.
The idea is:
static struct timeval tv;
gettimeofday(&tv, NULL);
static struct timeval tv2;
gettimeofday(&tv2, NULL);
static struct timeval tv3=tv2-tv;
and then convert 'tv3' into milliseconds resolution.
You can use the timersub() function provided by glibc, then convert the result to milliseconds (watch out for overflows when doing this, though!).
Here's how to do it manually (since timersub isn't a standard function offered elsewhere)
struct timeval tv;
gettimeofday(&tv, NULL);
// ...
struct timeval tv2;
gettimeofday(&tv2, NULL);
int microseconds = (tv2.tv_sec - tv.tv_sec) * 1000000 + ((int)tv2.tv_usec - (int)tv.tv_usec);
int milliseconds = microseconds/1000;
struct timeval tv3;
tv3.tv_sec = microseconds/1000000;
tv3.tv_usec = microseconds%1000000;
(and you have to watch for overflow, which makes it even worse)
The current version of C++ offers a better option though:
#include <chrono> // new time utilities
// new type alias syntax
using Clock = std::chrono::high_resolution_clock;
// the above is the same as "typedef std::chrono::high_resolution_clock Clock;"
// but easier to read and the syntax supports being templated
using Time_point = Clock::time_point;
Time_point tp = Clock::now();
// ...
Time_point tp2 = Clock::now();
using std::chrono::milliseconds;
using std::chrono::duration_cast;
std::cout << duration_cast<milliseconds>(tp2 - tp).count() << '\n';