GNU time NEWS                                         -*- outline -*-

* Noteworthy changes in release 1.10 (2026-04-14) [stable]

** Bug fixes

  'time --help' no longer incorrectly lists the short option -h as being
  supported.  Previously it was listed as being equivalent to --help.
  [bug introduced in time-1.8]

  'time --help' no longer emits duplicate percent signs in the description of
  the --portability option.
  [bug introduced in time-1.8]

  time now opens the file specified by --output with its close-on-exec flag set.
  Previously the file descriptor would be leaked into the child process.
  [This bug was present in "the beginning".]

  time no longer appends the program name to the output when the format string
  contains a trailing backslash.
  [This bug was present in "the beginning".]

** Improvements

  time now uses the more portable waitpid and getrusage system calls
  instead of wait3.

  time can now be built using a C23 compiler.

  time now uses unlocked stdio functions on platforms that provide them.

* Noteworthy changes in release 1.9 (2018-03-12) [stable]

** Improvements

  time now reports percent CPU usage for programs lasting less then 1 second.
  previously, time would report '??%' if programs lasted less than 1 second.
  (adopted from Fedora).

** Changes in behaviour

  "time -p" no longer adds the "Command exited with non-zero status" message.
  This is a backward-incompatible change for better POSIX compliance.
  Many downstream distributions previously patched 'time' to behave this way
  (Debian added '-q', Fedora patched '-p').


* Noteworthy changes in release 1.8 (2017-11-07) [stable]

** Licensing

  First official release under GPLv3-or-later.
  Previous version (v1.7) was GPLv2-or-later.
  The code in the git repository has been updated to GPLv3-or-later
  in 2015 (in git-tagged version 1.7.1).


** New Features

  time supports new -q/--quiet option to suppresses abnormal
  program terminal (non-exit codes or signals).
  Modelled after Debian's  https://bugs.debian.org/56853 .

  time now uses the following exit codes (same as GNU coreutils' env):
   125 = Wrong usage or internal error prior to exec attempt.
   126 = Program located, but not usable.
   127 = Could not find program to exec.

  time now exits with code '128 + Signal number' when the program
  is terminated by a signal.
  Modelled after Debian's 'non-normal-exit' upstream patch,
  and behaves the same as GNU coreutils' timeout(1).

  time now reports MAX-RSS values correctly on modern systems
  (the old code base, last updated in 1996, incorrectly calculated
  pages/kilobytes and overestimated MAX-RSS).
  Modelled after Debian's https://bugs.debian.org/649402 .


** Improvements

  Use gnulib modules and build infrastructure.

  New tests infrastructure (make check).

  Portability improvements (e.g. detection of time.h, sys/resources.h,
  getrusage now delegated to gnulib).



Changes in version 1.7.1:
* Released under GPL V3 License

Major changes in version 1.7:

* Reports average memory use figures more accurately on SunOS sparc,
  Ultrix mips, and Sony NEWS.
* Reports when the process being run is terminated by a signal,
  and exits with the signal number as its status in that case.
* Documentation reorganized.
* Configuration and library files updated.

Major changes in version 1.6:

* Configures correctly on NeXT and OSF/1.
* Documentation errors fixed.

Major changes in version 1.5:

* Support for Solaris, AIX, and other non-BSD hybrids.
* Fractional seconds are correctly reported.
* The verbose display fits on one screen now and has more accurate labels.

Major changes in version 1.4:

* Support for systems without the BSD getrusage and wait3 calls.
* Improved configuration.
* Clarified documentation of some resources.

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