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Trail: Essential Classes
Lesson: The Platform Environment
Section: System Utilities
The Platform Environment
Configuration Utilities
Properties
Command-Line Arguments
Environment Variables
Other Configuration Utilities
System Utilities
Command-Line I/O Objects
System Properties
The Security Manager
Miscellaneous Methods in System
PATH and CLASSPATH
Questions and Exercises
Home Page > Essential Classes > The Platform Environment
Miscellaneous Methods in System

> This section describes some of the methods in `System` that aren't covered in the previous sections.

> The `arrayCopy` method efficiently copies data between arrays. For more information, refer to Arrays in the Language Basics lesson.

> The `currentTimeMillis` and `nanoTime` methods are useful for measuring time intervals during execution of an application. To measure a time interval in milliseconds, invoke `currentTimeMillis` twice, at the beginning and end of the interval, and subtract the first value returned from the second. Similarly, invoking `nanoTime` twice measures an interval in nanoseconds.

> > NOTE: The accuracy of both `currentTimeMillis` and `nanoTime` is limited by the time services provided by the operating system. Do not assume that `currentTimeMillis` is accurate to the nearest millisecond or that `nanoTime` is accurate to the nearest nanosecond. Also, neither `currentTimeMillis` nor `nanoTime` should be used to determine the current time. Use a high-level method, such as `java.util.Calendar.getInstance`.

> The `exit` method causes the Java virtual machine to shut down, with an integer exit status specified by the argument. The exit status is available to the process that launched the application. By convention, an exit status of `0` indicates normal termination of the application, while any other value is an error code.

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