pythonlinuxcentospsutilcpu-time

What is the " Unit " of time returned by psutil.cpu_times()?


Is it seconds? I am trying to match it with the output of top -n 1 | grep Cpu command, and they look different!

>>> psutil.cpu_times()
scputimes(user=678.99, nice=2.15, system=405.34, idle=414554.14, iowait=12.95, irq=0.0, softirq=2.43, steal=95.2, guest=0.0, guest_nice=0.0)
>>> exit()
[root@Server]# top -n 1 | grep Cpu
%Cpu(s):  0.0 us,  0.0 sy,  0.0 ni,100.0 id,  0.0 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st

Solution

  • Yes, it's seconds. The reference docs for this are here:

    https://psutil.readthedocs.io/en/latest/#psutil.cpu_times

    Every attribute represents the seconds the CPU has spent in the given mode.

    For a description of the top is giving you, refer to this answer:

    https://superuser.com/questions/575202/understanding-top-command-in-unix

    The values you're seeing from top are percentages, hence they don't align with the values you're seeing from psutil

    To be honest, it's not clear what you're trying to achieve here.