I used boost::timer for measuring the duration of an operation. It provides a very easy way to do the measurement, and at the same time being platform independent. Here is an example:
boost::timer myTimer;
doOperation();
std::cout << myTimer.elapsed();
P.S. To overcome precision errors, it would be great to measure operations that take a few seconds. Especially when you are trying to compare several alternatives. If you want to measure something that takes very little time, try putting it into a loop. For example run the operation 1000 times, and then divide the total time by 1000.
