28

I've just switched to zsh. However, I really don't like how the time builtin command also outputs the command that it's timing. I much prefer the bash style output. Anyone know how to switch it over?

Zsh:

[casqa1:~/temp]$ time grep foo /dev/null
/usr/local/gnu/bin/grep --color -i foo /dev/null  0.00s user 0.00s system 53% cpu 0.004 total

Bash:

[casqa1:~/temp]$ bash
casqa1.nyc:~/temp> time grep foo /dev/null

real        0.0
user        0.0
sys         0.0

Thanks,

/YGA

Doug Harris
  • 28,397
YGA
  • 2,035

3 Answers3

37

This is fairly close:

$ TIMEFMT=$'\nreal\t%*E\nuser\t%*U\nsys\t%*S'

$ time sleep 1


real    1.01s
user    0.00s
sys     0.00s
Dennis Williamson
  • 111,445
12

Another option is to disable the builtin command and use the time binary provided by your operating system. I have the following in my .zshrc:

disable -r time       # disable shell reserved word
alias time='time -p ' # -p for POSIX output

This way time outputs to STDERR.

exic
  • 519
5

Just a small precision regarding Dennis Williamson's very useful answer (the "fairly close" part): bash's built-in time outputs to stderr, while zsh's outputs to stdout.

This command can illustrate the difference: time (echo abc) 2>/dev/null

In bash, it outputs:

    $ time (echo abc) 2>/dev/null
    abc

In zsh, with the suggested TIMEFMT variable:

    $ time (echo abc) 2>/dev/null
    abc

    real    0.00s
    user    0.00s
    sys     0.00s
anol
  • 1,870