measuring 1/100th seconds, what function?

[Dan Christensen]

Roy Smith <roy at panix.com> writes:

> Tim Peters <tim.peters at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Note that on a box connected to a network time-correction
>> service, time.time can appear to "run backwards" briefly at
>> unpredictable times.
>
> This will never happen if you're running NTP.  NTP does gradual 
> adjustments to the clock rate to ensure that the system clock is always 
> monotonically increasing.

ntp only works well if your clock rate is very consistent.  On all of
the laptops I've used, I get frequent adjustments:

Aug  6 20:30:45 localhost ntpd[911]: time reset -0.472600 s
Aug  5 22:04:57 localhost ntpd[919]: time reset +0.670974 s
Aug  5 22:34:06 localhost ntpd[919]: time reset +0.884625 s
Aug  5 23:13:54 localhost ntpd[919]: time reset -0.376758 s

I don't see any reason in principle ntp couldn't allow a greater
offset between the local machine and the servers, and use gradual
adjustments in this case.  But it doesn't.

Dan