Alternatives to <ctime>

c++, c++11, visual-c++

Solution

C++11 includes the `<chrono>` header, which provides different types of clocks (I'll use the high resolution one), that have a `now` function. You can subtract two of these times received from `now()` to get the total number of `<unit>`s (I'll use seconds) between them:

using clock = std::chrono::high_resolution_clock;
using unit = std::chrono::seconds;
std::chrono::time_point<clock> startTime = clock::now(); //get starting time

... //do whatever stuff you have to do

std::chrono::time_point<clock> thisTime = clock::now();
long long secondsElapsed = std::chrono::duration_cast<unit>(thisTime - startTime).count();

//now use secondsElapsed however you wish
//you can also use other units, such as milliseconds or nanoseconds

Do note, however, that `secondsElapsed` is not guaranteed to be positive unless the `is_steady` member of the clock is `true` because that member being `true` means that a subsequent call to `now()` will give a larger number than a former call to `now()`.

Problem

Original source