How to find out how long my task is taking

Question

Not the cpu time but the real world time.

This is what I do right now.

date
my_task
date

But this requires keeping an eye on the screen all 5 mts. There should be a better way.

I'm using mac.

Answer 1

Use the time command:

time my_task

Answer 2

I've had luck switching to zsh and using this:

http://blog.tobez.org/2009/03/how-to-time-command-execution-in-zsh.html

(Note the reference to REPORTTIME in the comments.)