Timer function to provide time in nano seconds using C++

Question

I wish to calculate the time it took for an API to return a value. The time taken for such an action is in the space of nano seconds. As the API is a C++ class/function, I a

Answer 1

You can use the following function with gcc running under x86 processors:

unsigned long long rdtsc()
{
  #define rdtsc(low, high) \
         __asm__ __volatile__("rdtsc" : "=a" (low), "=d" (high))

  unsigned int low, high;
  rdtsc(low, high);
  return ((ulonglong)high << 32) | low;
}

with Digital Mars C++:

unsigned long long rdtsc()
{
   _asm
   {
        rdtsc
   }
}

which reads the high performance timer on the chip. I use this when doing profiling.