Custom format for time command

To use the Bash builtin time rather than /bin/time you can set this variable:

TIMEFORMAT='%3R'

which will output the real time that looks like this:

5.009

or

65.233

The number specifies the precision and can range from 0 to 3 (the default).

You can use:

TIMEFORMAT='%3lR'

to get output that looks like:

3m10.022s

The l (ell) gives a long format.

From the man page for time:

1. There may be a shell built-in called time, avoid this by specifying /usr/bin/time

2. You can provide a format string and one of the format options is elapsed time - e.g. %E

   /usr/bin/time -f'%E' $CMD

Example:

$ /usr/bin/time -f'%E' ls /tmp/mako/
res.py  res.pyc
0:00.01

You could use the date command to get the current time before and after performing the work to be timed and calculate the difference like this:

#!/bin/bash

# Get time as a UNIX timestamp (seconds elapsed since Jan 1, 1970 0:00 UTC)
T="$(date +%s)"

# Do some work here
sleep 2

T="$(($(date +%s)-T))"
echo "Time in seconds: ${T}"

printf "Pretty format: %02d:%02d:%02d:%02d\n" "$((T/86400))" "$((T/3600%24))" "$((T/60%60))" "$((T%60))""

Notes: $((...)) can be used for basic arithmetic in bash – caution: do not put spaces before a minus - as this might be interpreted as a command-line option.

See also: http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/arithexp.html

EDIT:
Additionally, you may want to take a look at sed to search and extract substrings from the output generated by time.

EDIT:

Example for timing with milliseconds (actually nanoseconds but truncated to milliseconds here). Your version of date has to support the %N format and bash should support large numbers.

# UNIX timestamp concatenated with nanoseconds
T="$(date +%s%N)"

# Do some work here
sleep 2

# Time interval in nanoseconds
T="$(($(date +%s%N)-T))"
# Seconds
S="$((T/1000000000))"
# Milliseconds
M="$((T/1000000))"

echo "Time in nanoseconds: ${T}"
printf "Pretty format: %02d:%02d:%02d:%02d.%03d\n" "$((S/86400))" "$((S/3600%24))" "$((S/60%60))" "$((S%60))" "${M}"

DISCLAIMER:
My original version said

M="$((T%1000000000/1000000))"

but this was edited out because it apparently did not work for some people whereas the new version reportedly did. I did not approve of this because I think that you have to use the remainder only but was outvoted.
Choose whatever fits you.