What Is Os.Time And How Do I Use It?

Help and Feedback Scripting Support
#1

I want to learn how to use os.time and what even is it. I tried to look everywhere but the explanation is too complicated. :wave:

#2 
print(os.time()) --> some big integer

wait(3)

print(os.time()) --> should be around the last printed integer +3

It’s just a thing that returns the LOCAL time, which is affected by the timezone of the running machine.
Nevermind.

#3

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https://developer.roblox.com/en-us/api-reference/lua-docs/os

#4

But why would I need the time from January 1970?

#5

What do you mean, I don’t get it…

#6

You don’t necessarily need January 1970, you just need the seconds from it. Why? If you want to make a timer or a temporary ban, you use the amount of seconds since the Unix Epoch to determine how much time has passed.

In @Feedekaiser’s example, they showed that 3 seconds had passed since the last time the function was called. It’s useful anything relating to time. Really any operating system or device you use, uses this.

1 Like
#7

That is tick of what you are talking about, it doesn’t return the local time.

#8

Thanks for the heads up.‌‌‌‌‌‌

#9

os.time basically just returns how many seconds have passed since January, 1970.

#10

Oh I see. So then how would I implement it or how would I use it. Like this?

local currentTime = os.time()

wait(86400)

local time = os.time()

pritn("24 hours has passd by")
2 Likes
#11

Yes, you can use it like that, but you can also do this:

local start = os.clock() -- you can also use os.time()
local connection

connection = game:GetService("RunService").Heartbeat:Connect(function()
    if os.clock() - start > 3 then
       print("more than 3 seconds have passed")
       connection:Disconnect()
    end
end)

You can use wait as well.

3 Likes
#12

Oh thanks a lot. Now I know. But one more question. Is os.time same thing as os.clock() ?

#13

os.clock() just returns the amount of CPU being used by Lua in seconds (benchmarking), it’s used a lot but there’s alternatives like tick() and os.time(). Whichever one you want to use is up to you.

1 Like