wall time

English

Etymology

Ellipsis of wall-clock time.

Noun

wall time (uncountable)

1. (computing) The actual time of day, as would be seen on a wall clock; contrasted with the (possibly inaccurate) time according to a computer system.
2. (computing) The actual amount of time taken from the start to the end of an operation, as opposed to CPU time, which only includes the periods of time during which the CPU was processing instructions.

   Synonyms: clock time, elapsed real time, real-world time, wall-clock time

   • 2019, Joshua Izaac, Jingbo Wang, Computational Quantum Mechanics, Springer, →ISBN, page 158:

     Additionally, determining the wall time for specific functions or control structures (e.g. for loops) can help identify the most computationally-intensive portion of your program, and indicate which sections should be optimised if possible.

Coordinate terms

• CPU time
• user time