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# microtime

(PHP 3, PHP 4, PHP 5)

microtime -- Return current Unix timestamp with microseconds

## Description

mixed microtime ( [bool get_as_float] )

microtime() returns the current Unix timestamp with microseconds. This function is only available on operating systems that support the gettimeofday() system call.

## Parameters

`get_as_float`

  When called without the optional argument, this function returns the string "msec sec" where sec is the current time measured in the number of seconds since the Unix Epoch (0:00:00 January 1, 1970 GMT), and msec is the microseconds part. Both portions of the string are returned in units of seconds.

  If the optional `get_as_float` is set to `TRUE` then a float (in seconds) is returned.

## ChangeLog

Version | Description
--- | ---
5.0.0 | The `get_as_float` parameter was added.

## Examples

Example 1. Timing script execution with microtime()

`<?php /** * Simple function to replicate PHP 5 behaviour */ function microtime_float() { list($usec, $sec) = explode(" ", microtime()); return ((float)$usec + (float)$sec); } $time_start = microtime_float(); // Sleep for a while usleep(100); $time_end = microtime_float(); $time = $time_end - $time_start; echo "Did nothing in $time seconds\n"; ?>`

Example 2. Timing script execution in PHP 5

`<?php $time_start = microtime(true); // Sleep for a while usleep(100); $time_end = microtime(true); $time = $time_end - $time_start; echo "Did nothing in $time seconds\n"; ?>`

## See Also

time()

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