times
This function returns a four-element list giving the user and system CPU times, in seconds (possibly fractional), for this process and the children of this process.
($user, $system, $cuser, $csystem) = times;
For example, to time the execution speed of a section of Perl code:
$start = (times)[0]; ... $end = (times)[0]; printf "that took %.2f CPU seconds\n", $end - $start;