Time command not reporting memory usage :<

[Mark David Dumlao]

Hi, I wanted to ask about the "GNU time" command, so I looked up the
homepage at
http://directory.fsf.org/project/time/
However, the support mailing list gives me a failure notice that the mail
does not exist
anymore.  Since the question I am asking may also be a bug, I think I can
also ask it here.

Below is my original mail
===
Hi, this is my first support question here.  I hope I'm not accidentally
being rude or anything.

I am asking about the GNU time command.

==time version
address@hidden /usr/portage $ /usr/bin/time --version
GNU time 1.7
==/time version

I'm trying to use the time command to report system statistics of a
particular command that
I am running repeatedly to perform a benchmark test.  Problem is, time, by
default,
tries to report memory, but always says my memory usage is zero.  Here is a
sample bash
thing that `should' use memory.

==sample time usage
address@hidden /usr/portage $ /usr/bin/time bash
address@hidden /usr/portage $ for ((x=1;$x<100000;x++)); do echo -n;
done
address@hidden /usr/portage $ exit
exit
0.84user 0.00system 0:12.65elapsed 6%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k
0inputs+0outputs (0major+1237minor)pagefaults 0swaps
address@hidden /usr/portage $
==/sample time usage

It might have something to do with my kernel stuff, but I don't think it
should, because
my top command reports memory usage alright.

==sample top command
address@hidden /usr/portage $ top -bn1|head
top - 14:35:58 up  2:41,  4 users,  load average: 0.25, 0.35, 0.29
Tasks:  90 total,   2 running,  88 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s):  8.3% us,  0.7% sy,  0.2% ni, 86.0% id,  4.7% wa,  0.1% hi,  0.0% si
Mem:    446424k total,   440288k used,     6136k free,    25640k buffers
Swap:   979956k total,    94612k used,   885344k free,    48916k cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+
COMMAND
    1 root      18   0  2668  536  504 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.33init
    2 root      11  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00kthreadd
    3 root      RT  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0
0:00.00migration/0
address@hidden /usr/portage $
==/sample top command

I tried reading the time manual for how to get it to report system memory,
but no fun.

I am running `Gentoo Base System release 1.12.9' (2007) at my work computer
and
`Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon' at my home computer and both of their time
commands
are ignorant about memory usage.

For the record I am running Linux 2.6.22 on both my home and work computers.

Help?


-- 
thing.