Python speed testing - Time Difference - milliseconds

Question

What is the proper way to compare 2 times in Python in order to speed test a section of code? I tried reading the API docs. I'm not sure I understand the timedelta thing.

So far I have this code:

from datetime import datetime

tstart = datetime.now()
print t1

# code to speed test

tend = datetime.now()
print t2
# what am I missing?
# I'd like to print the time diff here

Answer 1

You could simply print the difference:

print tend - tstart

Answer 2

I am not a Python programmer, but I do know how to use Google and here's what I found: you use the "-" operator. To complete your code:

from datetime import datetime

tstart = datetime.now()

# code to speed test

tend = datetime.now()
print tend - tstart

Additionally, it looks like you can use the strftime() function to format the timespan calculation in order to render the time however makes you happy.

Answer 3

The following code should display the time detla...

from datetime import datetime

tstart = datetime.now()

# code to speed test

tend = datetime.now()
print tend - tstart

Answer 4

time.time() / datetime is good for quick use, but is not always 100% precise. For that reason, I like to use one of the std lib profilers (especially hotshot) to find out what's what.

Answer 5

datetime.timedelta is just the difference between two datetimes ... so it's like a period of time, in days / seconds / microseconds

>>> a = datetime.datetime.now()
>>> b = datetime.datetime.now()
>>> c = b - a

>>> c
datetime.timedelta(0, 4, 316543)
>>> c.days
0
>>> c.seconds
4
>>> c.microseconds
316543

You can do all sorts of maths with datetime.timedelta, eg:

>>> c / 10
datetime.timedelta(0, 0, 431654)

It might be more useful to look at CPU time instead of wallclock time though ... that's operating system dependant though ... under Unix-like systems, check out the 'time' command.

Answer 6

You could also use:

import time

start = time.clock()
do_something()
end = time.clock()
print "%.2gs" % (end-start)

Or you could use the python profilers.

Answer 7

You may want to look into the profile modules. You'll get a better read out of where your slowdowns are, and much of your work will be full-on automated.

Answer 8

You might want to use the timeit module instead.

Answer 9

http://docs.python.org/library/timeit.html