"""Framework for measuring execution time for small code snippets. This module avoids a number of common traps for measuring execution times. See also Tim Peters' introduction to the Algorithms chapter in the Python Cookbook, published by O'Reilly. Library usage: see the Timer class. Command line usage: python timeit.py [-n N] [-r N] [-s S] [-t] [-c] [-h] [statement] Options: -n/--number N: how many times to execute 'statement' (default: see below) -r/--repeat N: how many times to repeat the timer (default 1) -s/--setup S: statements executed once before 'statement' (default 'pass') -t/--time: use time.time() (default on Unix) -c/--clock: use time.clock() (default on Windows) -h/--help: print this usage message and exit statement: statement to be timed (default 'pass') A multi-line statement may be given by specifying each line as a separate argument; indented lines are possible by enclosing an argument in quotes and using leading spaces. If -n is not given, a suitable number of loops is calculated by trying successive powers of 10 until the total time is at least 0.2 seconds. The difference in default timer function is because on Windows, clock() has microsecond granularity but time()'s granularity is 1/60th of a second; on Unix, clock() has 1/100th of a second granularity and time() is much more precise. On either platform, the default timer functions measures wall clock time, not the CPU time. This means that other processes running on the same computer may interfere with the timing. The best thing to do when accurate timing is necessary is to repeat the timing a few times and use the best time; the -r option is good for this. On Unix, you can use clock() to measure CPU time. Note: there is a certain baseline overhead associated with executing a pass statement. The code here doesn't try to hide it, but you should be aware of it (especially when comparing different versions of Python). The baseline overhead is measured by invoking the program without arguments. """ # To use this module with older versions of Python, the dependency on # the itertools module is easily removed; in the template, instead of # itertools.repeat(None, number), use [None]*number. It's barely # slower. Note: the baseline overhead, measured by the default # invocation, differs for older Python versions! Also, to fairly # compare older Python versions to Python 2.3, you may want to use # python -O for the older versions to avoid timing SET_LINENO # instructions. import sys import math import time import itertools __all__ = ["Timer"] default_number = 1000000 default_repeat = 10 if sys.platform == "win32": # On Windows, the best timer is time.clock() default_timer = time.clock else: # On most other platforms the best timer is time.time() default_timer = time.time # Don't change the indentation of the template; the reindent() calls # in Timer.__init__() depend on setup being indented 4 spaces and stmt # being indented 8 spaces. template = """ def inner(number, timer): %(setup)s seq = itertools.repeat(None, number) t0 = timer() for i in seq: %(stmt)s t1 = timer() return t1-t0 """ def reindent(src, indent): """Helper to reindent a multi-line statement.""" return src.replace("\n", "\n" + " "*indent) class Timer: """Class for timing execution speed of small code snippets. The constructor takes a statement to be timed, an additional statement used for setup, and a timer function. Both statements default to 'pass'; the timer function is platform-dependent (see module doc string). To measure the execution time of the first statement, use the timeit() method. The repeat() method is a convenience to call timeit() multiple times and return a list of results. The statements may contain newlines, as long as they don't contain multi-line string literals. """ def __init__(self, stmt="pass", setup="pass", timer=default_timer): """Constructor. See class doc string.""" self.timer = timer stmt = reindent(stmt, 8) setup = reindent(setup, 4) src = template % {'stmt': stmt, 'setup': setup} code = compile(src, "", "exec") ns = {} exec code in globals(), ns self.inner = ns["inner"] def timeit(self, number=default_number): """Time 'number' executions of the main statement. To be precise, this executes the setup statement once, and then returns the time it takes to execute the main statement a number of times, as a float measured in seconds. The argument is the number of times through the loop, defaulting to one million. The main statement, the setup statement and the timer function to be used are passed to the constructor. """ return self.inner(number, self.timer) def repeat(self, repeat=default_repeat, number=default_number): """Call timer() a few times. This is a convenience function that calls the timer() repeatedly, returning a list of results. The first argument specifies how many times to call timer(), defaulting to 10; the second argument specifies the timer argument, defaulting to one million. """ r = [] for i in range(repeat): t = self.timeit(number) r.append(t) return r def main(args=None): """Main program, used when run as a script. The optional argument specifies the command line to be parsed, defaulting to sys.argv[1:]. The return value is an exit code to be passed to sys.exit(); it may be None to indicate success. """ if args is None: args = sys.argv[1:] import getopt try: opts, args = getopt.getopt(args, "n:s:r:tch", ["number=", "setup=", "repeat=", "time", "clock", "help"]) except getopt.error, err: print err print "use -h/--help for command line help" return 2 timer = default_timer stmt = "\n".join(args) or "pass" number = 0 # auto-determine setup = "pass" repeat = 1 for o, a in opts: if o in ("-n", "--number"): number = int(a) if o in ("-s", "--setup"): setup = a if o in ("-r", "--repeat"): repeat = int(a) if repeat <= 0: repeat = 1 if o in ("-t", "--time"): timer = time.time if o in ("-c", "--clock"): timer = time.clock if o in ("-h", "--help"): print __doc__, return 0 t = Timer(stmt, setup, timer) if number == 0: # determine number so that 0.2 <= total time < 2.0 for i in range(1, 10): number = 10**i x = t.timeit(number) if x >= 0.2: break r = t.repeat(repeat, number) best = min(r) print "%d loops," % number, usec = best * 1e6 / number if repeat > 1: print "best of %d: %.3f usec" % (repeat, usec) else: print "time: %.3f usec" % usec return None if __name__ == "__main__": sys.exit(main())