sleep(3)

NAME
sleep - sleep for a specified number of seconds

LIBRARY
Standard C library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h>

unsigned int sleep(unsigned int seconds);

DESCRIPTION
sleep() causes the calling thread to sleep either until the number of real-time seconds specified in seconds have elapsed or until a signal arrives which is not ignored.

RETURN VALUE
Zero if the requested time has elapsed, or the number of seconds left to sleep, if the call was interrupted by a signal handler.

ATTRIBUTES
For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).
Interface | Attribute | Value
 | Thread safety | MT-Unsafe sig:SIGCHLD/linux

VERSIONS
On Linux, sleep() is implemented via nanosleep(2). See the nanosleep(2) man page for a discussion of the clock used.

On some systems, sleep() may be implemented using alarm(2) and SIGALRM (POSIX.1 permits this); mixing calls to alarm(2) and sleep() is a bad idea.

STANDARDS
POSIX.1-2008.

HISTORY
POSIX.1-2001.

CAVEATS
Using longjmp(3) from a signal handler or modifying the handling of SIGALRM while sleeping will cause undefined results.

SEE ALSO
sleep(1), alarm(2), nanosleep(2), signal(2), signal(7)