If I had the following code
clock_t t;
t = clock();
//algorithm
t = clock() - t;
t would equal the number of ticks to run the program. Is this the same is CPU time? Are there any other ways to measure CPU time in C++?
OS -- Debian GNU/Linux
I am open to anything that will work. I am wanting to compare the CPU time of two algorithms.
clock() is specified to measure CPU time however not all implementations do this. In particular Microsoft's implementation in VS does not count additional time when multiple threads are running, or count less time when the program's threads are sleeping/waiting.
Also note that clock() should measure the CPU time used by the entire program, so while CPU time used by multiple threads in //algorithm will be measured, other threads that are not part of //algorithm also get counted.
clock() is the only method specified in the standard to measure CPU time, however there are certainly other, platform specific, methods for measuring CPU time.
std::chrono does not include any clock for measuring CPU time. It only has a clock synchronized to the system time, a clock that advances at a steady rate with respect to real time, and a clock that is 'high resolution' but which does not necessarily measure CPU time.
How to mesure cpu-time used ?
#include <ctime>
std::clock_t c_start = std::clock();
// your_algorithm
std::clock_t c_end = std::clock();
long_double time_elapsed_ms = 1000.0 * (c_end-c_start) / CLOCKS_PER_SEC;
std::cout << "CPU time used: " << time_elapsed_ms << " ms\n";
Of course, if you display time in seconds :
std::cout << "CPU time used: " << time_elapsed_ms / 1000.0 << " s\n";
Source : http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/chrono/c/clock
A non-standard way to do this using pthreads is:
#include <pthread.h>
#include <time.h>
timespec cpu_time()
{
thread_local bool initialized(false);
thread_local clockid_t clock_id;
if (!initialized)
{
pthread_getcpuclockid(pthread_self(), &clock_id);
initialized = true;
}
timespec result;
clock_gettime(clock_id, &result);
return result;
}
Addition: A more standard way is:
#include <sys/resource.h>
#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
struct rusage r;
getrusage(RUSAGE_SELF, &r);
printf("CPU usage: %d.%06d\n", r.ru_utime.tv_sec, r.ru_utime.tv_usec);
}
C++ has a chrono library. See http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/chrono. There are also often platform dependent ways to get at high resolution timers (obviously varies by platform).
Related
What's the best way to calculate a time difference in C++? I'm timing the execution speed of a program, so I'm interested in milliseconds. Better yet, seconds.milliseconds..
The accepted answer works, but needs to include ctime or time.h as noted in the comments.
See std::clock() function.
const clock_t begin_time = clock();
// do something
std::cout << float( clock () - begin_time ) / CLOCKS_PER_SEC;
If you want calculate execution time for self ( not for user ), it is better to do this in clock ticks ( not seconds ).
EDIT:
responsible header files - <ctime> or <time.h>
I added this answer to clarify that the accepted answer shows CPU time which may not be the time you want. Because according to the reference, there are CPU time and wall clock time. Wall clock time is the time which shows the actual elapsed time regardless of any other conditions like CPU shared by other processes. For example, I used multiple processors to do a certain task and the CPU time was high 18s where it actually took 2s in actual wall clock time.
To get the actual time you do,
#include <chrono>
auto t_start = std::chrono::high_resolution_clock::now();
// the work...
auto t_end = std::chrono::high_resolution_clock::now();
double elapsed_time_ms = std::chrono::duration<double, std::milli>(t_end-t_start).count();
if you are using c++11, here is a simple wrapper (see this gist):
#include <iostream>
#include <chrono>
class Timer
{
public:
Timer() : beg_(clock_::now()) {}
void reset() { beg_ = clock_::now(); }
double elapsed() const {
return std::chrono::duration_cast<second_>
(clock_::now() - beg_).count(); }
private:
typedef std::chrono::high_resolution_clock clock_;
typedef std::chrono::duration<double, std::ratio<1> > second_;
std::chrono::time_point<clock_> beg_;
};
Or for c++03 on *nix:
#include <iostream>
#include <ctime>
class Timer
{
public:
Timer() { clock_gettime(CLOCK_REALTIME, &beg_); }
double elapsed() {
clock_gettime(CLOCK_REALTIME, &end_);
return end_.tv_sec - beg_.tv_sec +
(end_.tv_nsec - beg_.tv_nsec) / 1000000000.;
}
void reset() { clock_gettime(CLOCK_REALTIME, &beg_); }
private:
timespec beg_, end_;
};
Example of usage:
int main()
{
Timer tmr;
double t = tmr.elapsed();
std::cout << t << std::endl;
tmr.reset();
t = tmr.elapsed();
std::cout << t << std::endl;
return 0;
}
I would seriously consider the use of Boost, particularly boost::posix_time::ptime and boost::posix_time::time_duration (at http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_38_0/doc/html/date_time/posix_time.html).
It's cross-platform, easy to use, and in my experience provides the highest level of time resolution an operating system provides. Possibly also very important; it provides some very nice IO operators.
To use it to calculate the difference in program execution (to microseconds; probably overkill), it would look something like this [browser written, not tested]:
ptime time_start(microsec_clock::local_time());
//... execution goes here ...
ptime time_end(microsec_clock::local_time());
time_duration duration(time_end - time_start);
cout << duration << '\n';
boost 1.46.0 and up includes the Chrono library:
thread_clock class provides access to the real thread wall-clock, i.e.
the real CPU-time clock of the calling thread. The thread relative
current time can be obtained by calling thread_clock::now()
#include <boost/chrono/thread_clock.hpp>
{
...
using namespace boost::chrono;
thread_clock::time_point start = thread_clock::now();
...
thread_clock::time_point stop = thread_clock::now();
std::cout << "duration: " << duration_cast<milliseconds>(stop - start).count() << " ms\n";
In Windows: use GetTickCount
//GetTickCount defintition
#include <windows.h>
int main()
{
DWORD dw1 = GetTickCount();
//Do something
DWORD dw2 = GetTickCount();
cout<<"Time difference is "<<(dw2-dw1)<<" milliSeconds"<<endl;
}
You can also use the clock_gettime. This method can be used to measure:
System wide real-time clock
System wide monotonic clock
Per Process CPU time
Per process Thread CPU time
Code is as follows:
#include < time.h >
#include <iostream>
int main(){
timespec ts_beg, ts_end;
clock_gettime(CLOCK_PROCESS_CPUTIME_ID, &ts_beg);
clock_gettime(CLOCK_PROCESS_CPUTIME_ID, &ts_end);
std::cout << (ts_end.tv_sec - ts_beg.tv_sec) + (ts_end.tv_nsec - ts_beg.tv_nsec) / 1e9 << " sec";
}
`
just in case you are on Unix, you can use time to get the execution time:
$ g++ myprog.cpp -o myprog
$ time ./myprog
For me, the most easy way is:
#include <boost/timer.hpp>
boost::timer t;
double duration;
t.restart();
/* DO SOMETHING HERE... */
duration = t.elapsed();
t.restart();
/* DO OTHER STUFF HERE... */
duration = t.elapsed();
using this piece of code you don't have to do the classic end - start.
Enjoy your favorite approach.
Just a side note: if you're running on Windows, and you really really need precision, you can use QueryPerformanceCounter. It gives you time in (potentially) nanoseconds.
Get the system time in milliseconds at the beginning, and again at the end, and subtract.
To get the number of milliseconds since 1970 in POSIX you would write:
struct timeval tv;
gettimeofday(&tv, NULL);
return ((((unsigned long long)tv.tv_sec) * 1000) +
(((unsigned long long)tv.tv_usec) / 1000));
To get the number of milliseconds since 1601 on Windows you would write:
SYSTEMTIME systime;
FILETIME filetime;
GetSystemTime(&systime);
if (!SystemTimeToFileTime(&systime, &filetime))
return 0;
unsigned long long ns_since_1601;
ULARGE_INTEGER* ptr = (ULARGE_INTEGER*)&ns_since_1601;
// copy the result into the ULARGE_INTEGER; this is actually
// copying the result into the ns_since_1601 unsigned long long.
ptr->u.LowPart = filetime.dwLowDateTime;
ptr->u.HighPart = filetime.dwHighDateTime;
// Compute the number of milliseconds since 1601; we have to
// divide by 10,000, since the current value is the number of 100ns
// intervals since 1601, not ms.
return (ns_since_1601 / 10000);
If you cared to normalize the Windows answer so that it also returned the number of milliseconds since 1970, then you would have to adjust your answer by 11644473600000 milliseconds. But that isn't necessary if all you care about is the elapsed time.
If you are using:
tstart = clock();
// ...do something...
tend = clock();
Then you will need the following to get time in seconds:
time = (tend - tstart) / (double) CLOCKS_PER_SEC;
This seems to work fine for intel Mac 10.7:
#include <time.h>
time_t start = time(NULL);
//Do your work
time_t end = time(NULL);
std::cout<<"Execution Time: "<< (double)(end-start)<<" Seconds"<<std::endl;
I want to measure duration of a piece of code with a std::chrono clock, but it seems too heavy to measure something that lasts nanoseconds. That program:
#include <cstdio>
#include <chrono>
int main() {
using clock = std::chrono::high_resolution_clock;
// try several times
for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
// two consequent now() here, one right after another without anything in between
printf("%dns\n", (int)std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::nanoseconds>(clock::now() - clock::now()).count());
}
return 0;
}
Always gives me around 100-300ns. Is this because of two syscalls? Is it possible to have less duration between two now()? Thanks!
Environment: Linux Ubuntu 18.04, kernel 4.18, load average is low, stdlib is linked dynamically.
Use rdtsc instruction to measure times with the highest resolution and the least overhead possible:
#include <iostream>
#include <cstdint>
int main() {
uint64_t a = __builtin_ia32_rdtsc();
uint64_t b = __builtin_ia32_rdtsc();
std::cout << b - a << " cpu cycles\n";
}
Output:
19 cpu cycles
To convert the cycles to nanoseconds divide cycles by the base CPU frequency in GHz. For example, for a 4.2GHz i7-7700k divide by 4.2.
TSC is a global counter in the CPU shared across all cores.
Modern CPUs have a constant TSC that ticks at the same rate regardless of the current CPU frequency and boost. Look for constant_tsc in /proc/cpuinfo, flags field.
Also note, that __builtin_ia32_rdtsc is more effective than the inline assembly, see https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=48877
If you want to measure the duration of very fast code snippets it is generally a good idea to run them multiple times and take the average time of all runs, the ~200ns that you mention will be negligible then because they are distributed over all runs.
Example:
#include <cstdio>
#include <chrono>
using clock = std::chrono::high_resolution_clock;
auto start = clock::now();
int n = 10000; // adjust depending on the expected runtime of your code
for (unsigned int i = 0; i < n; ++i)
functionYouWantToTime();
auto result =
std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::nanoseconds>(start - clock::now()).count() / n;
Just do not use time clocks for nanoseconds benchmark. Instead, use CPU ticks - on any hardware modern enough to worry about nanoseconds, CPU ticks are monotonic, steady and synchronized between cores.
Unfortunately, C++ does not expose CPU tick clock, so you'd have to use RDTSC instruction directly (it can be nicely wrapped in the inline function or you can use compiler's intrinsics). The difference in CPU ticks could also be converted into time if you so desire (by using CPU frequency), but normally for such a low-latency benchmarks it is not necessary.
This question already has answers here:
How can I benchmark C code easily?
(5 answers)
Closed 6 years ago.
I have a function which can generate 10000 random numbers and write them in a file.
void generator(char filename[])
{
int i;
int n;
FILE* fp;
if((fp=fopen(filename,"w+"))==NULL)
{
printf("Fail creating fileļ¼");
}
srand((unsigned)time(NULL));
for(i=0;i<10000;i++)
{
n=rand()%10000;
fprintf(fp,"%d ",n);
}
fclose(fp);
}
How can I get the execution time of this function using C/C++ ?
Code profiling is not a particularly easy task (or, as we oft-say in programming, it's "non-trivial".) The issue is because "execution time" measured in seconds isn't particularly accurate or useful.
What you're wanting to do is to measure the number of CPU cycles. This can be done using an external tool such as callgrind (one of Valgrind's tools). There's a 99% chance that's all you want.
If you REALLY want to do that yourself in code, you're undertaking a rather difficult task. I know first hand - I wrote a comparative benchmarking library in C++ for on-the-fly performance testing.
If you really want to go down that road, you can research benchmarking on Intel processors (that mostly carries over to AMD), or whatever processor you've using. However, as I said, that topic is large and in-depth, and far beyond the scope of a StackOverflow answer.
You can use the chrono library;
#include <chrono>
//*****//
auto start = std::chrono::steady_clock::now();
generator("file.txt")
auto end = std::chrono::steady_clock::now();
std::cout << "genarator() took "
<< std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::microseconds>(end - start).count() << "us.\n";
You have already some nice C answers that also work with C++.
Here a native C++ solution using <chrono>:
auto tbegin = std::chrono::high_resolution_clock::now();
...
auto tend = std::chrono::high_resolution_clock::now();
auto tduration = std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::microseconds>(tend - tbegin).count();
The advantage is that you can switch from microsecond to millisecond, seconds or any other time measurement units very easily.
Note that you may have OS limits to the clocking accuracy (typically 15 milliseconds on windows environment), so that this may give meaningful results only if you're really above this limit.
void generator(char filename)
{
clock_t tStart = clock();
/* your code here */
printf("Time taken: %.2fs\n", (double)(clock() - tStart)/CLOCKS_PER_SEC);
}
upd. And add #include <ctime>
Try this
#include <sys/time.h>
struct timeval tpstart,tpend;
double timeuse;
//get time before generator starts
gettimeofday(&tpstart,NULL);
//call generator function
generator(filename);
//get time after generator ends
gettimeofday(&tpend,NULL);
//calculate the used time
timeuse=1000000*(tpend.tv_sec-tpstart.tv_sec)+tpend.tv_usec-tpstart.tv_usec;
timeuse/=1000000;
printf("Used Time:%fsec\n",timeuse);
#include <ctime>
.....
clock_t start = clock();
...//the code you want to get the execution time for
double elapsed_time = static_cast<double>(clock() - start) / CLOCKS_PER_SEC;
std::cout << elapsed_time << std::endl;//elapsed_time now contains the execution time(in seconds) of the code in between
will give you an approximate(not accurate) execution time of the code between the first and second clock() calls
Temporarily make the limit 10000000
Time it with a stopwatch. Divide the time by 1000
I need some way in c++ to keep track of the number of milliseconds since program execution. And I need the precision to be in milliseconds. (In my googling, I've found lots of folks that said to include time.h and then multiply the output of time() by 1000 ... this won't work.)
clock has been suggested a number of times. This has two problems. First of all, it often doesn't have a resolution even close to a millisecond (10-20 ms is probably more common). Second, some implementations of it (e.g., Unix and similar) return CPU time, while others (E.g., Windows) return wall time.
You haven't really said whether you want wall time or CPU time, which makes it hard to give a really good answer. On Windows, you could use GetProcessTimes. That will give you the kernel and user CPU times directly. It will also tell you when the process was created, so if you want milliseconds of wall time since process creation, you can subtract the process creation time from the current time (GetSystemTime). QueryPerformanceCounter has also been mentioned. This has a few oddities of its own -- for example, in some implementations it retrieves time from the CPUs cycle counter, so its frequency varies when/if the CPU speed changes. Other implementations read from the motherboard's 1.024 MHz timer, which does not vary with the CPU speed (and the conditions under which each are used aren't entirely obvious).
On Unix, you can use GetTimeOfDay to just get the wall time with (at least the possibility of) relatively high precision. If you want time for a process, you can use times or getrusage (the latter is newer and gives more complete information that may also be more precise).
Bottom line: as I said in my comment, there's no way to get what you want portably. Since you haven't said whether you want CPU time or wall time, even for a specific system, there's not one right answer. The one you've "accepted" (clock()) has the virtue of being available on essentially any system, but what it returns also varies just about the most widely.
See std::clock()
Include time.h, and then use the clock() function. It returns the number of clock ticks elapsed since the program was launched. Just divide it by "CLOCKS_PER_SEC" to obtain the number of seconds, you can then multiply by 1000 to obtain the number of milliseconds.
Some cross platform solution. This code was used for some kind of benchmarking:
#ifdef WIN32
LARGE_INTEGER g_llFrequency = {0};
BOOL g_bQueryResult = QueryPerformanceFrequency(&g_llFrequency);
#endif
//...
long long osQueryPerfomance()
{
#ifdef WIN32
LARGE_INTEGER llPerf = {0};
QueryPerformanceCounter(&llPerf);
return llPerf.QuadPart * 1000ll / ( g_llFrequency.QuadPart / 1000ll);
#else
struct timeval stTimeVal;
gettimeofday(&stTimeVal, NULL);
return stTimeVal.tv_sec * 1000000ll + stTimeVal.tv_usec;
#endif
}
The most portable way is using the clock function.It usually reports the time that your program has been using the processor, or an approximation thereof. Note however the following:
The resolution is not very good for GNU systems. That's really a pity.
Take care of casting everything to double before doing divisions and assignations.
The counter is held as a 32 bit number in GNU 32 bits, which can be pretty annoying for long-running programs.
There are alternatives using "wall time" which give better resolution, both in Windows and Linux. But as the libc manual states: If you're trying to optimize your program or measure its efficiency, it's very useful to know how much processor time it uses. For that, calendar time and elapsed times are useless because a process may spend time waiting for I/O or for other processes to use the CPU.
Here is a C++0x solution and an example why clock() might not do what you think it does.
#include <chrono>
#include <iostream>
#include <cstdlib>
#include <ctime>
int main()
{
auto start1 = std::chrono::monotonic_clock::now();
auto start2 = std::clock();
sleep(1);
for( int i=0; i<100000000; ++i);
auto end1 = std::chrono::monotonic_clock::now();
auto end2 = std::clock();
auto delta1 = end1-start1;
auto delta2 = end2-start2;
std::cout << "chrono: " << std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::duration<float>>(delta1).count() << std::endl;
std::cout << "clock: " << static_cast<float>(delta2)/CLOCKS_PER_SEC << std::endl;
}
On my system this outputs:
chrono: 1.36839
clock: 0.36
You'll notice the clock() method is missing a second. An astute observer might also notice that clock() looks to have less resolution. On my system it's ticking by in 12 millisecond increments, terrible resolution.
If you are unable or unwilling to use C++0x, take a look at Boost.DateTime's ptime microsec_clock::universal_time().
This isn't C++ specific (nor portable), but you can do:
SYSTEMTIME systemDT;
In Windows.
From there, you can access each member of the systemDT struct.
You can record the time when the program started and compare the current time to the recorded time (systemDT versus systemDTtemp, for instance).
To refresh, you can call GetLocalTime(&systemDT);
To access each member, you would do systemDT.wHour, systemDT.wMinute, systemDT.wMilliseconds.
To get more information on SYSTEMTIME.
Do you want wall clock time, CPU time, or some other measurement? Also, what platform is this? There is no universally portable way to get more precision than time() and clock() give you, but...
on most Unix systems, you can use gettimeofday() and/or clock_gettime(), which give at least microsecond precision and access to a variety of timers;
I'm not nearly as familiar with Windows, but one of these functions probably does what you want.
You can try this code (get from StockFish chess engine source code (GPL)):
#include <iostream>
#include <stdio>
#if !defined(_WIN32) && !defined(_WIN64) // Linux - Unix
# include <sys/time.h>
typedef timeval sys_time_t;
inline void system_time(sys_time_t* t) {
gettimeofday(t, NULL);
}
inline long long time_to_msec(const sys_time_t& t) {
return t.tv_sec * 1000LL + t.tv_usec / 1000;
}
#else // Windows and MinGW
# include <sys/timeb.h>
typedef _timeb sys_time_t;
inline void system_time(sys_time_t* t) { _ftime(t); }
inline long long time_to_msec(const sys_time_t& t) {
return t.time * 1000LL + t.millitm;
}
#endif
struct Time {
void restart() { system_time(&t); }
uint64_t msec() const { return time_to_msec(t); }
long long elapsed() const {
return long long(current_time().msec() - time_to_msec(t));
}
static Time current_time() { Time t; t.restart(); return t; }
private:
sys_time_t t;
};
int main() {
sys_time_t t;
system_time(&t);
long long currentTimeMs = time_to_msec(t);
std::cout << "currentTimeMs:" << currentTimeMs << std::endl;
Time time = Time::current_time();
for (int i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) {
//Do something
}
long long e = time.elapsed();
std::cout << "time elapsed:" << e << std::endl;
getchar(); // wait for keyboard input
}
In fact i am trying to calculate the time a function takes to complete in my program.
So i am using the logic to get system time when i call the function and time when the function returns a value then by subtracting the values i get time it took to complete.
So if anyone can tell me some better approach or just how to get system time at an instance it would be quite a help
The approach I use when timing my code is the time() function. It returns a single numeric value to you representing the epoch which makes the subtraction part easier for calculation.
Relevant code:
#include <time.h>
#include <iostream>
int main (int argc, char *argv[]) {
int startTime, endTime, totalTime;
startTime = time(NULL);
/* relevant code to benchmark in here */
endTime = time(NULL);
totalTime = endTime - startTime;
std::cout << "Runtime: " << totalTime << " seconds.";
return 0;
}
Keep in mind this is user time. For CPU, time see Ben's reply.
Your question is totally dependant on WHICH system you are using. Each system has its own functions for getting the current time. For finding out how long the system has been running, you'd want to access one of the "high resolution performance counters". If you don't use a performance counter, you are usually limited to microsecond accuracy (or worse) which is almost useless in profiling the speed of a function.
In Windows, you can access the counter via the 'QueryPerformanceCounter()' function. This returns an arbitrary number that is different on each processor. To find out how many ticks in the counter == 1 second, call 'QueryPerformanceFrequency()'.
If you're coding under a platform other than windows, just google performance counter and the system you are coding under, and it should tell you how you can access the counter.
Edit (clarification)
This is c++, just include windows.h and import the "Kernel32.lib" (seems to have removed my hyperlink, check out the documentation at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms644904.aspx). For C#, you can use the "System.Diagnostics.PerformanceCounter" class.
You can use time_t
Under Linux, try gettimeofday() for microsecond resolution, or clock_gettime() for nanosecond resolution.
(Of course the actual clock may have a coarser resolution.)
In some system you don't have access to the time.h header. Therefore, you can use the following code snippet to find out how long does it take for your program to run, with the accuracy of seconds.
void function()
{
time_t currentTime;
time(¤tTime);
int startTime = currentTime;
/* Your program starts from here */
time(¤tTime);
int timeElapsed = currentTime - startTime;
cout<<"It took "<<timeElapsed<<" seconds to run the program"<<endl;
}
You can use the solution with std::chrono described here: Getting an accurate execution time in C++ (micro seconds) you will have much better accuracy in your measurement. Usually we measure code execution in the round of the milliseconds (ms) or even microseconds (us).
#include <chrono>
#include <iostream>
...
[YOUR METHOD/FUNCTION STARTING HERE]
auto start = std::chrono::high_resolution_clock::now();
[YOUR TEST CODE HERE]
auto elapsed = std::chrono::high_resolution_clock::now() - start;
long long microseconds = std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::microseconds>(elapsed).count();
std::cout << "Elapsed time: " << microseconds << " ms;