Bash有一个方便的SECONDS内建变量，用于跟踪自shell启动以来已经过的秒数。此变量在赋值时保留其属性，赋值后返回的值为自赋值后的秒数加上赋值。

因此，您可以在启动计时事件之前将SECONDS设置为0，在事件发生后读取SECONDS，并在显示之前进行时间算术。

#!/usr/bin/env bash

SECONDS=0
# do some work
duration=$SECONDS
echo "$(($duration / 60)) minutes and $(($duration % 60)) seconds elapsed."

由于这个解决方案不依赖于date +%s(这是一个GNU扩展)，所以它可以移植到Bash支持的所有系统。

GNU单位:

$ units
2411 units, 71 prefixes, 33 nonlinear units
You have: (10hr+36min+10s)-(10hr+33min+56s)
You want: s
    * 134
    / 0.0074626866
You have: (10hr+36min+10s)-(10hr+33min+56s)
You want: min
    * 2.2333333
    / 0.44776119

这是我的bash实现(bit从其他SO;-)

function countTimeDiff() {
    timeA=$1 # 09:59:35
    timeB=$2 # 17:32:55

    # feeding variables by using read and splitting with IFS
    IFS=: read ah am as <<< "$timeA"
    IFS=: read bh bm bs <<< "$timeB"

    # Convert hours to minutes.
    # The 10# is there to avoid errors with leading zeros
    # by telling bash that we use base 10
    secondsA=$((10#$ah*60*60 + 10#$am*60 + 10#$as))
    secondsB=$((10#$bh*60*60 + 10#$bm*60 + 10#$bs))
    DIFF_SEC=$((secondsB - secondsA))
    echo "The difference is $DIFF_SEC seconds.";

    SEC=$(($DIFF_SEC%60))
    MIN=$((($DIFF_SEC-$SEC)%3600/60))
    HRS=$((($DIFF_SEC-$MIN*60)/3600))
    TIME_DIFF="$HRS:$MIN:$SEC";
    echo $TIME_DIFF;
}

$ countTimeDiff 2:15:55 2:55:16
The difference is 2361 seconds.
0:39:21

未测试，可能有bug。

#!/bin/bash

START_TIME=$(date +%s)

sleep 4

echo "Total time elapsed: $(date -ud "@$(($(date +%s) - $START_TIME))" +%T) (HH:MM:SS)"

$ ./total_time_elapsed.sh 
Total time elapsed: 00:00:04 (HH:MM:SS)

下面是Daniel Kamil Kozar的回答，表示小时/分钟/秒:

echo "Duration: $(($DIFF / 3600 )) hours $((($DIFF % 3600) / 60)) minutes $(($DIFF % 60)) seconds"

所以完整的脚本是:

date1=$(date +"%s")
date2=$(date +"%s")
DIFF=$(($date2-$date1))
echo "Duration: $(($DIFF / 3600 )) hours $((($DIFF % 3600) / 60)) minutes $(($DIFF % 60)) seconds"

% start=$(date +%s)
% echo "Diff: $(date -d @$(($(date +%s)-$start)) +"%M minutes %S seconds")"
Diff: 00 minutes 11 seconds