What is the return value of “times” system call in linux

Question

I am having a legacy function(which is given below) to find the tick count, that means how much time the system is up.

long findtick()
    {
        struct tms buf;
        clock_t tickcount = 0;
        tickcount = times(&buf);
        return (long)tickcount; 
    }

I am not able to find the behaviour of times system call and clock_t structure type.

My doubts are

1. What is the behaviour and return value of times system call in linux.
2. What is the structure definition of clock_t
3. Will this function return tickcount in seconds?
4. By any chance can this function return -1, because its return type is signed long

I am using gcc compiler in suse 10.

Answer 1

1. What is the behaviour and return value of times system call in linux.

   Ans : times

2. What is the structure definition of clock_t

   Ans : typedef clock_t long which is defined in ctime.h

3. Will this function return tickcount in seconds?

   Ans : yes

4. By any chance can this function return -1 , because its return type is signed long

   Ans : In failure case, times will return -1

Thanks @cnicutar