etime - (Not recommended; use datetime values or between)

        Time elapsed between date vectors - MATLAB ([original](https://in.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/etime.html)) ([raw](?raw))

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(Not recommended; use datetime values or between) Time elapsed between date vectors

Syntax

Description

e = etime([t2,t1](#btiguaa-1-t2t1)) returns the number of seconds between two date vectors or matrices of date vectors, t1 andt2.

Note: To measure the time required to run code, use timeit, or tic and toc, instead ofetime. For more information, see Tips.

example

Examples

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Compute the time elapsed between a specified time and the current time.

Specify the initial date and time as the start of January 2020. Convert it to date vector form.

t1 = datevec('2020-01-01')

Determine the current date and time by using the datetime function.

t2 = datetime 01-Feb-2025 08:44:37

Convert the current date and time to a date vector.

t2 = 1×6 103 ×

2.0250    0.0020    0.0010    0.0080    0.0440    0.0370

You can compute the number of seconds between t1 and t2 by using etime.

However, the etime function is not recommended. In particular, it is not recommended for measuring the time it takes to run your code.

Input Arguments

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Date vectors, specified as 1-by-6 vectors or m-by-6 matrices containing m full date vectors in the format:[Year Month Day Hour Minute Second].

Example: [2012 03 27 11 50 01]

Data Types: double

Tips

To time the duration of an event, use the timeit ortic and toc functions instead ofetime and clock. Theclock function is based on the system time, which can be adjusted periodically by the operating system, and thus might not be reliable in time comparison operations.

Algorithms

etime does not account for the following:

Leap seconds
Daylight saving time adjustments
Differences in time zones

Extended Capabilities

Version History

Introduced before R2006a

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There are no plans to remove etime. However, the datetime, duration, and calendarDuration data types are recommended instead. The datetime data type provides flexible date and time formats, storage out to nanosecond precision, and properties to account for time zones and daylight saving time.

To calculate the elapsed time between two datetime values, either subtract one from the other or use the between function. For example, subtract the start of today from the current date and time. Return the elapsed time as a duration value.

startOfToday = datetime("today") currentTime = datetime("now")

startOfToday = datetime 15-Apr-2022

currentTime = datetime 15-Apr-2022 15:53:28

elapsedTime = currentTime - startOfToday

elapsedTime = duration 15:53:28

To return elapsed time as a calendarDuration value, usebetween.

d1 = datetime("2022-01-01") d2 = datetime("now") elapsedTime = between(d1,d2)

elapsedTime = calendarDuration 6mo 18d 13h 19m 18.5561949999974s