bpo-43407: Clarify comparisons of time.monotonic() et al results (GH-24757)

Previous wording implied that only the result of call N and N+1 could be
meaningfully compared, whereas comparing call N and N+M is fine.
(cherry picked from commit ff5f05934db241dfafc604989b2de3487b09ca82)

Co-authored-by: Alex Willmer <alex@moreati.org.uk>

diff --git a/Doc/library/time.rst b/Doc/library/time.rst
index 6842e9075e1a682fbc014cb0959d4b463d7a3f68..e8bb9ccb8e77c467c5f34ae42a5e1864d9194b89 100644 (file)
--- a/Doc/library/time.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/time.rst
@@ -271,7 +271,7 @@ Functions
    Return the value (in fractional seconds) of a monotonic clock, i.e. a clock
    that cannot go backwards.  The clock is not affected by system clock updates.
    The reference point of the returned value is undefined, so that only the
-   difference between the results of consecutive calls is valid.
+   difference between the results of two calls is valid.
 
    .. versionadded:: 3.3
    .. versionchanged:: 3.5
@@ -293,7 +293,7 @@ Functions
    clock with the highest available resolution to measure a short duration.  It
    does include time elapsed during sleep and is system-wide.  The reference
    point of the returned value is undefined, so that only the difference between
-   the results of consecutive calls is valid.
+   the results of two calls is valid.
 
    .. versionadded:: 3.3
 
@@ -315,7 +315,7 @@ Functions
    CPU time of the current process.  It does not include time elapsed during
    sleep.  It is process-wide by definition.  The reference point of the
    returned value is undefined, so that only the difference between the results
-   of consecutive calls is valid.
+   of two calls is valid.
 
    .. versionadded:: 3.3
 
@@ -593,7 +593,7 @@ Functions
    CPU time of the current thread.  It does not include time elapsed during
    sleep.  It is thread-specific by definition.  The reference point of the
    returned value is undefined, so that only the difference between the results
-   of consecutive calls in the same thread is valid.
+   of two calls in the same thread is valid.
 
    .. availability::  Windows, Linux, Unix systems supporting
       ``CLOCK_THREAD_CPUTIME_ID``.

diff --git a/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Documentation/2021-03-04-22-53-03.bpo-43407.x570l5.rst b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Documentation/2021-03-04-22-53-03.bpo-43407.x570l5.rst
new file mode 100644 (file)
index 0000000..615e3d0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Documentation/2021-03-04-22-53-03.bpo-43407.x570l5.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+Clarified that a result from :func:`time.monotonic`,
+:func:`time.perf_counter`, :func:`time.process_time`, or
+:func:`time.thread_time` can be compared with the result from any following
+call to the same function - not just the next immediate call.