$time()

• All arguments, if any, are ignored.
• This function calls your system's time(3) function, which typically returns the number of seconds since the epoch, 1970 Jan 1 00:00:00 GMT.
• In theory, every unix host should have the same time as every other unix host, but getting everyone to agree on the time is like herding cats.
• If you need sub-second resolution, use the $utime() function.

You can convert the UTC value into human readable format using either the $stime() function or the $strftime() function. You can also use the UTC value for tracking the elapsed time between two events.

The number of seconds that have elapsed since the epoch.

$time()      might return "850381369"

This function first appeared in ircII.