### 8.168 `MCLOCK` — Time function

Description:
  Returns the number of clock ticks since the start of the process, based on the function `clock(3)` in the C standard library.

  This intrinsic is not fully portable, such as to systems with 32-bit `INTEGER` types but supporting times wider than 32 bits. Therefore, the values returned by this intrinsic might be, or become, negative, or numerically less than previous values, during a single run of the compiled program.

Standard:
  GNU extension
Class:
  Function
Syntax:
  `RESULT = MCLOCK()`
Return value:
  The return value is a scalar of type `INTEGER(4)`, equal to the number of clock ticks since the start of the process, or `-1` if the system does not support `clock(3)`.
See also:
  CTIME, GMTIME, LTIME, MCLOCK, TIME