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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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