How to set my tcsh prompt to show the execution time of the previous command?

Question

I am using tcsh at work and would really appreciate knowing how long the execution of a command took place.

For example:

~
❯ sleep 55

~ took 55s
❯

Answer 1

Just use the time command.

> time sleep 55
0.001u 0.000s 0:55.01 0.0%  0+0k 0+0io 0pf+0w

EDIT:

I hadn't noticed the title. To do that for every command, you can use the precmd, postcmd aliases along with the date command

alias postcmd 'set start_time=`date +%s`'
alias precmd 'set end_time=`date +%s`; @ cmd_time= $end_time - $start_time; echo took $cmd_time seconds'

Run both these commands, or add them to ~/.cshrc if you want this to be default behavior. The output would be like this:

> time sleep 55
took 55 seconds

Explanation:

postcmd: Runs before each command gets executed.

precmd: Runs just before each prompt is printed (after the command runs).

date +%s: Prints time in raw seconds format.

I simply saved the raw seconds value in the variables start_time and end_time, then saved the difference in cmd_time and printed it.