int getrusage(int who, struct rusage *usage);
getrusage() returns resource usage measures for who, which can be one of the following:
The resource usages are returned in the structure pointed to by usage, which has the following form:
struct rusage { struct timeval ru_utime; /* user time used */ struct timeval ru_stime; /* system time used */ long ru_maxrss; /* maximum resident set size */ long ru_ixrss; /* integral shared memory size */ long ru_idrss; /* integral unshared data size */ long ru_isrss; /* integral unshared stack size */ long ru_minflt; /* page reclaims */ long ru_majflt; /* page faults */ long ru_nswap; /* swaps */ long ru_inblock; /* block input operations */ long ru_oublock; /* block output operations */ long ru_msgsnd; /* messages sent */ long ru_msgrcv; /* messages received */ long ru_nsignals; /* signals received */ long ru_nvcsw; /* voluntary context switches */ long ru_nivcsw; /* involuntary context switches */ };
RUSAGE_THREAD is Linux-specific.
Including <sys/time.h> is not required these days, but increases portability. (Indeed, struct timeval is defined in <sys/time.h>.)
In Linux kernel versions before 2.6.9, if the disposition of SIGCHLD is set to SIG_IGN then the resource usages of child processes are automatically included in the value returned by RUSAGE_CHILDREN, although POSIX.1-2001 explicitly prohibits this. This non-conformance is rectified in Linux 2.6.9 and later.
The structure definition shown at the start of this page was taken from 4.3BSD Reno. Not all fields are meaningful under Linux. In Linux 2.4 only the fields ru_utime, ru_stime, ru_minflt, and ru_majflt are maintained. Since Linux 2.6, ru_nvcsw and ru_nivcsw are also maintained.
See also the description of /proc/PID/stat in proc(5).