What is the psutil.cpu_times() method in Python?

Overview

In Python, psutil (Python system and process utilities) is a package that retrieves information on ongoing processes and system usage (CPU, memory, storage, network, and sensors). It is mostly used for system monitoring, profiling, restricting process resources, and process management.

The module can be installed via pip as follows:

pip install psutil

The cpu_times method

The cpu_times method returns the following system CPU times as a named tuple:

• user: This represents the time spent by normal processes executing in the user mode.
• system: This represents the time spent by processes executing in the kernel mode.
• idle: This represents the time when the system is idle.
• nice: This represents the time spent by priority processes executing in the user mode.
• iowait: This represents the time spent waiting for I/O to complete.
• irq: This represents the time spent for servicing hardware interrupts.
• softirq: This represents the time spent for servicing software interrupts.
• steal: Represents the time spent by other operating systems running in a virtualized environment
• guest: This represents the time spent running a virtual CPU for guest operating systems under the control of the Linux kernel.

The following attributes are available only on the Windows platform.

• interrupt: This represents the time spent for servicing hardware interrupts.
• dpc: This represents the time spent servicing deferred procedure calls (DPCs).

All the attributes above are measured in seconds.

Syntax

psutil.cpu_times(percpu=False)

• percpu: If set to True, the method returns CPU times for every logical CPU on the system.

Code

Explanation

• Line 1: We import the psutil module.
• Line 4: We retrieve the CPU times using the cpu_times method with all as False. Here, the values are measured in seconds.
• Line 8: We retrieve the CPU times for all the CPUs using the cpu_times method with all as True. Here, the values are measured as percentage.