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

If this is for Linux, I've been using the function "gettimeofday", which returns a struct that gives the seconds and microseconds since the Epoch. You can then use timersub to subtract the two to get the difference in time, and convert it to whatever precision of time you want. However, you specify nanoseconds, and it looks like the function clock_gettime() is what you're looking for. It puts the time in terms of seconds and nanoseconds into the structure you pass into it.

Answer 2

For C++11, here is a simple wrapper:

#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,

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;
}

From https://gist.github.com/gongzhitaao/7062087

Answer 3

In general, for timing how long it takes to call a function, you want to do it many more times than just once. If you call your function only once and it takes a very short time to run, you still have the overhead of actually calling the timer functions and you don't know how long that takes.

For example, if you estimate your function might take 800 ns to run, call it in a loop ten million times (which will then take about 8 seconds). Divide the total time by ten million to get the time per call.

Answer 4

I am using the following to get the desired results:

#include <time.h>
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main (int argc, char** argv)
{
    // reset the clock
    timespec tS;
    tS.tv_sec = 0;
    tS.tv_nsec = 0;
    clock_settime(CLOCK_PROCESS_CPUTIME_ID, &tS);
    ...
    ... <code to check for the time to be put here>
    ...
    clock_gettime(CLOCK_PROCESS_CPUTIME_ID, &tS);
    cout << "Time taken is: " << tS.tv_sec << " " << tS.tv_nsec << endl;

    return 0;
}