Advanced Python Programming

Timing your benchmark

A very simple way to time a benchmark is through the Unix time command. Using the time command, as follows, you can easily measure the execution time of an arbitrary process:

    $ time python simul.pyreal    0m1.051suser    0m1.022ssys     0m0.028s

The time command is not available for Windows. To install Unix tools, such as time, on Windows you can use the cygwin shell, downloadable from the official website (http://www.cygwin.com/). Alternatively, you can use similar PowerShell commands, such as Measure-Command (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/reference/5.1/microsoft.powershell.utility/measure-command), to measure execution time.

By default, time displays three metrics:

• real: The actual time spent running the process ...