What is the best way to measure execution time of a function?

Question

Obviously I can do and DateTime.Now.After - DateTime.Now.Before but there must be something more sophisticated.

Any tips appreciated.

Answer 1

System.Environment.TickCount and the System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch class are two that work well for finer resolution and straightforward usage.

See Also:

• Is DateTime.Now the best way to measure a function’s performance?
• High resolution timer in .NET
• Environment.TickCount vs DateTime.Now
• What’s the best way to benchmark programs in Windows?

Answer 2

I would definitely advise you to have a look at System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch

And when I looked around for more about Stopwatch I found this site;

Beware of the stopwatch

There mentioned another possibility

Process.TotalProcessorTime

Answer 3

Tickcount is good, however i suggest running it 100 or 1000 times, and calculating an average. Not only makes it more measurable - in case of really fast/short functions, but helps dealing with some one-off effects caused by the overhead.

Answer 4

Use a Profiler

Your approach will work nevertheless, but if you are looking for more sophisticated approaches. I'd suggest using a C# Profiler.

The advantages they have is:

• You can even get a statement level breakup
• No changes required in your codebase
• Instrumentions generally have very less overhead, hence very accurate results can be obtained.

There are many available open-source as well.

Answer 5

egg timer