How do I measure execution time of a command on the Windows command line?

Question

Is there a built-in way to measure execution time of a command on the Windows command line?

Answer 1

The following script uses only "cmd.exe" and outputs the number of milliseconds from the time a pipeline is created to the time that the process preceding the script exits. i.e., Type your command, and pipe the to the script. Example: "timeout 3 | runtime.cmd" should yield something like "2990." If you need both the runtime output and the stdin output, redirect stdin before the pipe - ex: "dir /s 1>temp.txt | runtime.cmd" would dump the output of the "dir" command to "temp.txt" and would print the runtime to the console.

:: --- runtime.cmd ----
@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion

:: find target for recursive calls
if not "%1"=="" (
    shift /1
    goto :%1
    exit /b
)

:: set pipeline initialization time
set t1=%time%

:: wait for stdin
more > nul

:: set time at which stdin was ready
set t2=!time!

::parse t1
set t1=!t1::= !
set t1=!t1:.= !
set t1=!t1: 0= !

:: parse t2
set t2=!t2::= !
set t2=!t2:.= !
set t2=!t2: 0= !

:: calc difference
pushd %~dp0
for /f %%i in ('%0 calc !t1!') do for /f %%j in ('%0 calc !t2!') do (
    set /a t=%%j-%%i
    echo !t!
)
popd
exit /b
goto :eof

:calc
set /a t=(%1*(3600*1000))+(%2*(60*1000))+(%3*1000)+(%4)
echo !t!
goto :eof

endlocal