Similar functionality to CLOCK_MONOTONIC in Windows (and Windows Embedded CE)

Question

I have some C++ Windows code which needs to compute time intervals. For that, it uses GetCurrentFT if it detects that is running in WinCE and GetSystemTimeAsFileTime for other Windows platforms. However, if I'm not mistaken, this might be vulnerable to system clock manipulations (i.e. someone changing the system clock would make the measured time intervals unreliable).

Is there something similar to UNIX's CLOCK_MONOTONIC for these platforms (both WinCE and the other Windows platforms) which would make use of a monotonically increasing counter and not the system clock?

Use GetTickCount() or QueryPerformanceCounter(). – Hans Passant Apr 24 '15 at 15:36 — Hans Passant, Apr 24 '15 at 15:36

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 24 '15 at 17:21

1

std::chrono::steady_clock is monotonic and not vulnerable to system time changes. I don't know if Microsoft supports C++11 for WinCE though.

answered Apr 24 '15 at 17:21

bames53

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Thanks for the suggestion, but even if they did I am stuck with C++03 for this project :( – user2891462 Apr 27 '15 at 17:04

user2891462 · Accepted Answer · 2021-09-12T18:29:52.103

0

I did end up using GetTickCount(), which worked just fine.

As per Microsoft's documentation:

The number of milliseconds that have elapsed since the system was started indicates success.

It is a monotonic counter, which is what I was looking for. The granularity of the returned value depends on the hardware, but seems to be enough for my purposes in the hardware I'm using.

edited Sep 12 '21 at 18:29

answered Apr 22 '16 at 17:29

user2891462

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Similar functionality to CLOCK_MONOTONIC in Windows (and Windows Embedded CE)

2 Answers2