The getMicroTime() function returns a floating point (float) timestamp that represents the number of seconds since an unspecified epoch (a zero point).

The timestamp is accurate to one microsecond or better. The return value has no necessary relationship to wall time or correlator time and should be used only to compare similar timestamps.

Because the epoch is unspecified, you should use these timestamps in calculations only with other timestamps generated by the getMicroTime() function or with equivalent high-resolution timestamps generated by an Apama adapter.

For example, you might want to use high-resolution timestamps for calculating event processing latency in an Apama application. You can compare the timestamps across processes on the same machine. The timestamps are not comparable between different machines.