I would like to write a generic function so that I can compare two timestamps (my own class, returns nanoseconds since epoch) with whatever std::chrono::duration value (seconds, milliseconds etc) I pass in, so something like:
template<typename PERIOD>
bool IsTimestampWithin(const MyTime t1, const MyTime t2, const rsInt64 units){
return t2.Nanos() - t1.Nanos() < units;
}
However, I am uncertain how to create an std::chrono object from the number of nanoseconds my timestamp returns. Every example I could find was using system or high precision clock casts.
You can duration_cast any duration to std::chrono::nanoseconds, then use .count() to extract the nanosecond value.
using std::chrono::duration;
using std::chrono::duration_cast;
using std::chrono::nanoseconds;
template<typename R, typename P>
bool IsTimestampWithin(const MyTime t1, const MyTime t2, const duration<R, P>& units){
return t2.Nanos() - t1.Nanos() < duration_cast<nanoseconds>(units).count();
}
// usage:
if (isTimestampWithin(previous, now, std::chrono::milliseconds(300))) {
...
}
If your MyTime can be converted to a std::chrono::time_point structure (from the same clock source), then you don't even need to care about duration_cast, you could simply write:
return t2.to_time_point() - t1.to_time_point() < units;
Related
I am using MMV libraries provided by Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) framework. I need to reset the value in the MMV instance on a regular interval basis. I came across the mmv_stats_interval_start() api of PCP. Please explain how this api is working and how to get notification when the interval is elapsed.
mmv_stats_interval_start(void *addr, pmAtomValue *value,
const char *metric, const char *instance)
{
if (addr) {
if (value == NULL)
value = mmv_lookup_value_desc(addr, metric, instance);
if (value) {
struct timeval tv;
__pmtimevalNow(&tv);
mmv_inc_value(addr, value, -(tv.tv_sec*1e6 + tv.tv_usec));
}
}
return value;
}
An example in the github page of PCP is mmv_genstats.c
The mmv_stats_interval_start function pairs with mmv_stats_interval_end to accumulate time intervals (microseconds) between matching pairs of those calls. See for example http://git.pcp.io/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=pcp.git;a=blob;f=qa/src/mmv_genstats.c;hb=HEAD
MMV is not about notifications, only about efficiently exposing internal statistics of the program that uses -lpcp_mmv. Notifications would have to arise from another PCP client such as pmie.
I have looked over this thread which talks about using this method for comparison:
struct thing
{
int a;
char b;
bool operator<(const thing &o) const
{
return a < o.a;
}
};
priority_queue<thing> pq;
On the other hand other uses method such as this:
struct Time {
int h;
int m;
int s;
};
class CompareTime {
public:
bool operator()(Time& t1, Time& t2) // Returns true if t1 is earlier than t2
{
if (t1.h < t2.h) return true;
if (t1.h == t2.h && t1.m < t2.m) return true;
if (t1.h == t2.h && t1.m == t2.m && t1.s < t2.s) return true;
return false;
}
}
priority_queue<Time, vector<Time>, CompareTime> pq;
While I logic myself with the first method, I don't quit understand the second method. Mostly because of the syntax. I am not quit sure what the overloading operator operator() means. What is that operator overloading?
Also, from cplusplus on priority_queue, I don't quite understand the following, mainly the second parameter.
template < class T, class Container = vector<T>,
class Compare = less<typename Container::value_type> > class priority_queue;
In another word, I don't understand the second method and its calling convention.
Also, what's the difference and which method is preferred?
I am not quit sure what the overloading operator operator() means.
What is that operator overloading?
What we have here is an overloading of the function call operator (see SO question) , this means that client code can 'treat' the CompareTime class instances as compare functions :
CompareTime ct;
if ( ct(t1, t2) )
{
...
}
I don't quite understand the following, mainly the second parameter.
The cplusplus reference summarizes quite well , the template parameters :
0 arg - The type of the objects within the queue.
1 arg - The underlying container/data structure for the queue, by
default its the std vector
2 arg - Operation on priority queue relies on some precedence
comparison, i.e. which item in the queue should be 'before' other item (see also Wikipedia , so this arg accepts to have compare object (functor) which mean instances of plain class which overload the () operator , the default is the std less functor which is simply a wrapper above the '<' semantics (boolean 2 valued function object).
// TEMPLATE STRUCT less
template<class _Ty>
struct less : public binary_function<_Ty, _Ty, bool>
{
// functor for operator<
bool operator()(const _Ty& _Left, const _Ty& _Right) const
{
// apply operator< to operands
return (_Left < _Right);
}
};
It's clear that there is no explicit way or certain system calls that
help programmers to put a variable into the CPU cache.
But I think that a certain programming style or well designed
algorithm can make it possible to increase the possibilities that the
variable can be cached into the CPU caches.
Here is my example:
I want to append an 8 byte structure at the end of an array consisting
of the same type of structures, declared in the global main memory
region.
This process is continuously repeated for 4 million operations. This process takes 6 seconds, 1.5 us for each operation. I think this result tells that the two memory areas have not been cached.
I got some clues from a cache-oblivious algorithm, so I tried several
ways to enhance this. Until now, no enhancement.
I think some clever codes can reduce the elapsed time, up to 10 to 100
times. Please show me the way.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Appended (2011-04-01)
Damon~ thank you for your comment!
After reading your comment, I analyzed my code again, and found several things
that I missed. The following code that I attached is the abbreviated version of my original code.
To accurately measure each operation's execution time (in the original code, there are several different types of operations), I inserted the time measuring code using clock_gettime() function. I thought if I measure each operation's execution time and accumulate them, the additional cost by the main loop can be avoided.
In the original code, the time measuring code was hidden by a macro function, so I totally forgot about it.
The running time of this code is almost 6 seconds. But if I get rid of the time measuring function in the main loop, it becomes 0.1 seconds.
Since the clock_gettime() function supports very high precision (upto 1 nano second), executed on the basis of an independent thread, and also it requires very big structure,
I think the function caused the cache-out of the main memory area where the consecutive insertions are performed.
Thank you again for your comment. For further enhancement, any suggestion will be very helpful for me to optimize my code.
I think the hierachically defined structure variable might cause unnecessary time cost,
but first I want to know how much it would be, before I change it to the more C-style code.
typedef struct t_ptr {
uint32 isleaf :1, isNextLeaf :1, ptr :30;
t_ptr(void) {
isleaf = false;
isNextLeaf = false;
ptr = NIL;
}
} PTR;
typedef struct t_key {
uint32 op :1, key :31;
t_key(void) {
op = OP_INS;
key = 0;
}
} KEY;
typedef struct t_key_pair {
KEY key;
PTR ptr;
t_key_pair() {
}
t_key_pair(KEY k, PTR p) {
key = k;
ptr = p;
}
} KeyPair;
typedef struct t_op {
KeyPair keyPair;
uint seq;
t_op() {
seq = 0;
}
} OP;
#define MAX_OP_LEN 4000000
typedef struct t_opq {
OP ops[MAX_OP_LEN];
int freeOffset;
int globalSeq;
bool queueOp(register KeyPair keyPair);
} OpQueue;
bool OpQueue::queueOp(register KeyPair keyPair) {
bool isFull = false;
if (freeOffset == (int) (MAX_OP_LEN - 1)) {
isFull = true;
}
ops[freeOffset].keyPair = keyPair;
ops[freeOffset].seq = globalSeq++;
freeOffset++;
}
OpQueue opQueue;
#include <sys/time.h>
int main() {
struct timespec startTime, endTime, totalTime;
for(int i = 0; i < 4000000; i++) {
clock_gettime(CLOCK_REALTIME, &startTime);
opQueue.queueOp(KeyPair());
clock_gettime(CLOCK_REALTIME, &endTime);
totalTime.tv_sec += (endTime.tv_sec - startTime.tv_sec);
totalTime.tv_nsec += (endTime.tv_nsec - startTime.tv_nsec);
}
printf("\n elapsed time: %ld", totalTime.tv_sec * 1000000LL + totalTime.tv_nsec / 1000L);
}
YOU don't put the structure into any cache. The CPU does that automatically for you. The CPU is even more clever than that; if you access sequential memory, it will start putting things from memory into the cache before you read them.
And really, it should be common sense that for a simple bit of code like this, the time you spend on measuring is ten times more than the time to perform the code (apparently 60 times in your case).
Since you put so much confidence in clock_gettime (): I suggest you call it five times in a row and store the results, then print the differences. There's resolution, there's precision, and there's how long it takes to return the current time, which is pretty damned long.
I have been unable to force caching, but you can force memory to be uncache-able. If you have large other datastructures you might exclude these so that they will not pollute your caches. This can be done by specifying PAGE_NOCACHE for the Windows VirutalAllocXXX functions.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa366786(v=vs.85).aspx
How can I get the Windows system time with millisecond resolution?
If the above is not possible, then how can I get the operating system start time? I would like to use this value together with timeGetTime() in order to compute a system time with millisecond resolution.
Try this article from MSDN Magazine. It's actually quite complicated.
Implement a Continuously Updating, High-Resolution Time Provider for Windows
(archive link)
This is an elaboration of the above comments to explain the some of the whys.
First, the GetSystemTime* calls are the only Win32 APIs providing the system's time. This time has a fairly coarse granularity, as most applications do not need the overhead required to maintain a higher resolution. Time is (likely) stored internally as a 64-bit count of milliseconds. Calling timeGetTime gets the low order 32 bits. Calling GetSystemTime, etc requests Windows to return this millisecond time, after converting into days, etc and including the system start time.
There are two time sources in a machine: the CPU's clock and an on-board clock (e.g., real-time clock (RTC), Programmable Interval Timers (PIT), and High Precision Event Timer (HPET)). The first has a resolution of around ~0.5ns (2GHz) and the second is generally programmable down to a period of 1ms (though newer chips (HPET) have higher resolution). Windows uses these periodic ticks to perform certain operations, including updating the system time.
Applications can change this period via timerBeginPeriod; however, this affects the entire system. The OS will check / update regular events at the requested frequency. Under low CPU loads / frequencies, there are idle periods for power savings. At high frequencies, there isn't time to put the processor into low power states. See Timer Resolution for further details. Finally, each tick has some overhead and increasing the frequency consumes more CPU cycles.
For higher resolution time, the system time is not maintained to this accuracy, no more than Big Ben has a second hand. Using QueryPerformanceCounter (QPC) or the CPU's ticks (rdtsc) can provide the resolution between the system time ticks. Such an approach was used in the MSDN magazine article Kevin cited. Though these approaches may have drift (e.g., due to frequency scaling), etc and therefore need to be synced to the system time.
In Windows, the base of all time is a function called GetSystemTimeAsFiletime.
It returns a structure that is capable of holding a time with 100ns resoution.
It is kept in UTC
The FILETIME structure records the number of 100ns intervals since January 1, 1600; meaning its resolution is limited to 100ns.
This forms our first function:
A 64-bit number of 100ns ticks since January 1, 1600 is somewhat unwieldy. Windows provides a handy helper function, FileTimeToSystemTime that can decode this 64-bit integer into useful parts:
record SYSTEMTIME {
wYear: Word;
wMonth: Word;
wDayOfWeek: Word;
wDay: Word;
wHour: Word;
wMinute: Word;
wSecond: Word;
wMilliseconds: Word;
}
Notice that SYSTEMTIME has a built-in resolution limitation of 1ms
Now we have a way to go from FILETIME to SYSTEMTIME:
We could write the function to get the current system time as a SYSTEIMTIME structure:
SYSTEMTIME GetSystemTime()
{
//Get the current system time utc in it's native 100ns FILETIME structure
FILETIME ftNow;
GetSytemTimeAsFileTime(ref ft);
//Decode the 100ns intervals into a 1ms resolution SYSTEMTIME for us
SYSTEMTIME stNow;
FileTimeToSystemTime(ref stNow);
return stNow;
}
Except Windows already wrote such a function for you: GetSystemTime
Local, rather than UTC
Now what if you don't want the current time in UTC. What if you want it in your local time? Windows provides a function to convert a FILETIME that is in UTC into your local time: FileTimeToLocalFileTime
You could write a function that returns you a FILETIME in local time already:
FILETIME GetLocalTimeAsFileTime()
{
FILETIME ftNow;
GetSystemTimeAsFileTime(ref ftNow);
//convert to local
FILETIME ftNowLocal
FileTimeToLocalFileTime(ftNow, ref ftNowLocal);
return ftNowLocal;
}
And lets say you want to decode the local FILETIME into a SYSTEMTIME. That's no problem, you can use FileTimeToSystemTime again:
Fortunately, Windows already provides you a function that returns you the value:
Precise
There is another consideration. Before Windows 8, the clock had a resolution of around 15ms. In Windows 8 they improved the clock to 100ns (matching the resolution of FILETIME).
GetSystemTimeAsFileTime (legacy, 15ms resolution)
GetSystemTimeAsPreciseFileTime (Windows 8, 100ns resolution)
This means we should always prefer the new value:
You asked for the time
You asked for the time; but you have some choices.
The timezone:
UTC (system native)
Local timezone
The format:
FILETIME (system native, 100ns resolution)
SYTEMTIME (decoded, 1ms resolution)
Summary
100ns resolution: FILETIME
UTC: GetSytemTimeAsPreciseFileTime (or GetSystemTimeAsFileTime)
Local: (roll your own)
1ms resolution: SYSTEMTIME
UTC: GetSystemTime
Local: GetLocalTime
GetTickCount will not get it done for you.
Look into QueryPerformanceFrequency / QueryPerformanceCounter. The only gotcha here is CPU scaling though, so do your research.
Starting with Windows 8 Microsoft has introduced the new API command GetSystemTimePreciseAsFileTime
Unfortunately you can't use that if you create software which must also run on older operating systems.
My current solution is as follows, but be aware: The determined time is not exact, it is only near to the real time. The result should always be smaller or equal to the real time, but with a fixed error (unless the computer went to standby). The result has a millisecond resolution. For my purpose it is exact enough.
void GetHighResolutionSystemTime(SYSTEMTIME* pst)
{
static LARGE_INTEGER uFrequency = { 0 };
static LARGE_INTEGER uInitialCount;
static LARGE_INTEGER uInitialTime;
static bool bNoHighResolution = false;
if(!bNoHighResolution && uFrequency.QuadPart == 0)
{
// Initialize performance counter to system time mapping
bNoHighResolution = !QueryPerformanceFrequency(&uFrequency);
if(!bNoHighResolution)
{
FILETIME ftOld, ftInitial;
GetSystemTimeAsFileTime(&ftOld);
do
{
GetSystemTimeAsFileTime(&ftInitial);
QueryPerformanceCounter(&uInitialCount);
} while(ftOld.dwHighDateTime == ftInitial.dwHighDateTime && ftOld.dwLowDateTime == ftInitial.dwLowDateTime);
uInitialTime.LowPart = ftInitial.dwLowDateTime;
uInitialTime.HighPart = ftInitial.dwHighDateTime;
}
}
if(bNoHighResolution)
{
GetSystemTime(pst);
}
else
{
LARGE_INTEGER uNow, uSystemTime;
{
FILETIME ftTemp;
GetSystemTimeAsFileTime(&ftTemp);
uSystemTime.LowPart = ftTemp.dwLowDateTime;
uSystemTime.HighPart = ftTemp.dwHighDateTime;
}
QueryPerformanceCounter(&uNow);
LARGE_INTEGER uCurrentTime;
uCurrentTime.QuadPart = uInitialTime.QuadPart + (uNow.QuadPart - uInitialCount.QuadPart) * 10000000 / uFrequency.QuadPart;
if(uCurrentTime.QuadPart < uSystemTime.QuadPart || abs(uSystemTime.QuadPart - uCurrentTime.QuadPart) > 1000000)
{
// The performance counter has been frozen (e. g. after standby on laptops)
// -> Use current system time and determine the high performance time the next time we need it
uFrequency.QuadPart = 0;
uCurrentTime = uSystemTime;
}
FILETIME ftCurrent;
ftCurrent.dwLowDateTime = uCurrentTime.LowPart;
ftCurrent.dwHighDateTime = uCurrentTime.HighPart;
FileTimeToSystemTime(&ftCurrent, pst);
}
}
GetSystemTimeAsFileTime gives the best precision of any Win32 function for absolute time. QPF/QPC as Joel Clark suggested will give better relative time.
Since we all come here for quick snippets instead of boring explanations, I'll write one:
FILETIME t;
GetSystemTimeAsFileTime(&t); // unusable as is
ULARGE_INTEGER i;
i.LowPart = t.dwLowDateTime;
i.HighPart = t.dwHighDateTime;
int64_t ticks_since_1601 = i.QuadPart; // now usable
int64_t us_since_1601 = (i.QuadPart * 1e-1);
int64_t ms_since_1601 = (i.QuadPart * 1e-4);
int64_t sec_since_1601 = (i.QuadPart * 1e-7);
// unix epoch
int64_t unix_us = (i.QuadPart * 1e-1) - 11644473600LL * 1000000;
int64_t unix_ms = (i.QuadPart * 1e-4) - 11644473600LL * 1000;
double unix_sec = (i.QuadPart * 1e-7) - 11644473600LL;
// i.QuadPart is # of 100ns ticks since 1601-01-01T00:00:00Z
// difference to Unix Epoch is 11644473600 seconds (attention to units!)
No idea how drifting performance-counter-based answers went up, don't do slippage bugs, guys.
QueryPerformanceCounter() is built for fine-grained timer resolution.
It is the highest resolution timer that the system has to offer that you can use in your application code to identify performance bottlenecks
Here is a simple implementation for C# devs:
[DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
extern static short QueryPerformanceCounter(ref long x);
[DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
extern static short QueryPerformanceFrequency(ref long x);
private long m_endTime;
private long m_startTime;
private long m_frequency;
public Form1()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
public void Begin()
{
QueryPerformanceCounter(ref m_startTime);
}
public void End()
{
QueryPerformanceCounter(ref m_endTime);
}
private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
QueryPerformanceFrequency(ref m_frequency);
Begin();
for (long i = 0; i < 1000; i++) ;
End();
MessageBox.Show((m_endTime - m_startTime).ToString());
}
If you are a C/C++ dev, then take a look here: How to use the QueryPerformanceCounter function to time code in Visual C++
Well, this one is very old, yet there is another useful function in Windows C library _ftime, which returns a structure with local time as time_t, milliseconds, timezone, and daylight saving time flag.
In C11 and above (or C++17 and above) you can use timespec_get() to get time with higher precision portably
#include <stdio.h>
#include <time.h>
int main(void)
{
struct timespec ts;
timespec_get(&ts, TIME_UTC);
char buff[100];
strftime(buff, sizeof buff, "%D %T", gmtime(&ts.tv_sec));
printf("Current time: %s.%09ld UTC\n", buff, ts.tv_nsec);
}
If you're using C++ then since C++11 you can use std::chrono::high_resolution_clock, std::chrono::system_clock (wall clock), or std::chrono::steady_clock (monotonic clock) in the new <chrono> header. No need to use Windows-specific APIs anymore
auto start1 = std::chrono::high_resolution_clock::now();
auto start2 = std::chrono::system_clock::now();
auto start3 = std::chrono::steady_clock::now();
// do some work
auto end1 = std::chrono::high_resolution_clock::now();
auto end2 = std::chrono::system_clock::now();
auto end3 = std::chrono::steady_clock::now();
std::chrono::duration<long long, std::milli> diff1 = end1 - start1;
std::chrono::duration<double, std::milli> diff2 = end2 - start2;
auto diff3 = std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::milliseconds>(end3 - start3);
std::cout << diff.count() << ' ' << diff2.count() << ' ' << diff3.count() << '\n';
Is there a common way to get the current time in or with milliseconds?
There is os.time(), but it only provides full seconds.
I use LuaSocket to get more precision.
require "socket"
print("Milliseconds: " .. socket.gettime()*1000)
This adds a dependency of course, but works fine for personal use (in benchmarking scripts for example).
If you want to benchmark, you can use os.clock as shown by the doc:
local x = os.clock()
local s = 0
for i=1,100000 do s = s + i end
print(string.format("elapsed time: %.2f\n", os.clock() - x))
In standard C lua, no. You will have to settle for seconds, unless you are willing to modify the lua interpreter yourself to have os.time use the resolution you want. That may be unacceptable, however, if you are writing code for other people to run on their own and not something like a web application where you have full control of the environment.
Edit: another option is to write your own small DLL in C that extends lua with a new function that would give you the values you want, and require that dll be distributed with your code to whomever is going to be using it.
Get current time in milliseconds.
os.time()
os.time()
return sec // only
posix.clock_gettime(clk)
https://luaposix.github.io/luaposix/modules/posix.time.html#clock_gettime
require'posix'.clock_gettime(0)
return sec, nsec
linux/time.h // man clock_gettime
/*
* The IDs of the various system clocks (for POSIX.1b interval timers):
*/
#define CLOCK_REALTIME 0
#define CLOCK_MONOTONIC 1
#define CLOCK_PROCESS_CPUTIME_ID 2
#define CLOCK_THREAD_CPUTIME_ID 3
#define CLOCK_MONOTONIC_RAW 4
#define CLOCK_REALTIME_COARSE 5
#define CLOCK_MONOTONIC_COARSE 6
socket.gettime()
http://w3.impa.br/~diego/software/luasocket/socket.html#gettime
require'socket'.gettime()
return sec.xxx
as waqas says
compare & test
get_millisecond.lua
local posix=require'posix'
local socket=require'socket'
for i=1,3 do
print( os.time() )
print( posix.clock_gettime(0) )
print( socket.gettime() )
print''
posix.nanosleep(0, 1) -- sec, nsec
end
output
lua get_millisecond.lua
1490186718
1490186718 268570540
1490186718.2686
1490186718
1490186718 268662191
1490186718.2687
1490186718
1490186718 268782765
1490186718.2688
I made a suitable solution for lua on Windows. I basically did what Kevlar suggested, but with a shared library rather than a DLL. This has been tested using cygwin.
I wrote some lua compatible C code, compiled it to a shared library (.so file via gcc in cygwin), and then loaded it up in lua using package.cpath and require" ". Wrote an adapter script for convenience. Here is all of the source:
first the C code, HighResTimer.c
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//HighResTimer.c by Cody Duncan
//
//compile with: gcc -o Timer.so -shared HighResTimer.c -llua5.1
//compiled in cygwin after installing lua (cant remember if I
// installed via setup or if I downloaded and compiled lua,
// probably the former)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
#include <windows.h>
typedef unsigned __int64 u64;
double mNanoSecondsPerCount;
#include "lua.h"
#include "lualib.h"
#include "lauxlib.h"
int prevInit = 0;
int currInit = 0;
u64 prevTime = 0;
u64 currTime = 0;
u64 FrequencyCountPerSec;
LARGE_INTEGER frequencyTemp;
static int readHiResTimerFrequency(lua_State *L)
{
QueryPerformanceFrequency(&frequencyTemp);
FrequencyCountPerSec = frequencyTemp.QuadPart;
lua_pushnumber(L, frequencyTemp.QuadPart);
return 1;
}
LARGE_INTEGER timerTemp;
static int storeTime(lua_State *L)
{
QueryPerformanceCounter(&timerTemp);
if(!prevInit)
{
prevInit = 1;
prevTime = timerTemp.QuadPart;
}
else if (!currInit)
{
currInit = 1;
currTime = timerTemp.QuadPart;
}
else
{
prevTime = currTime;
currTime = timerTemp.QuadPart;
}
lua_pushnumber(L, timerTemp.QuadPart);
return 1;
}
static int getNanoElapsed(lua_State *L)
{
double mNanoSecondsPerCount = 1000000000/(double)FrequencyCountPerSec;
double elapsedNano = (currTime - prevTime)*mNanoSecondsPerCount;
lua_pushnumber(L, elapsedNano);
return 1;
}
int luaopen_HighResolutionTimer (lua_State *L) {
static const luaL_reg mylib [] =
{
{"readHiResTimerFrequency", readHiResTimerFrequency},
{"storeTime", storeTime},
{"getNanoElapsed", getNanoElapsed},
{NULL, NULL} /* sentinel */
};
luaL_register(L,"timer",mylib);
return 1;
}
--
--
Now lets get it loaded up in a lua script, HighResTimer.lua .
Note: I compiled the HighResTimer.c to a shared library, Timer.so
#!/bin/lua
------------------------------------
---HighResTimer.lua by Cody Duncan
---Wraps the High Resolution Timer Functions in
--- Timer.so
------------------------------------
package.cpath = "./Timer.so" --assuming Timer.so is in the same directory
require "HighResolutionTimer" --load up the module
timer.readHiResTimerFrequency(); --stores the tickFrequency
--call this before code that is being measured for execution time
function start()
timer.storeTime();
end
--call this after code that is being measured for execution time
function stop()
timer.storeTime();
end
--once the prior two functions have been called, call this to get the
--time elapsed between them in nanoseconds
function getNanosElapsed()
return timer.getNanoElapsed();
end
--
--
and Finally, utilize the timer, TimerTest.lua .
#!/bin/lua
------------------------------------
---TimerTest.lua by Cody Duncan
---
---HighResTimer.lua and Timer.so must
--- be in the same directory as
--- this script.
------------------------------------
require './HighResTimer'
start();
for i = 0, 3000000 do io.write("") end --do essentially nothing 3million times.
stop();
--divide nanoseconds by 1 million to get milliseconds
executionTime = getNanosElapsed()/1000000;
io.write("execution time: ", executionTime, "ms\n");
Note: Any comments were written after pasting the source code into the post editor, so technically this is untested, but hopefully the comments didn't befuddle anything. I will be sure to come back and provide a fix if it does.
If you're using lua with nginx/openresty you could use ngx.now() which returns a float with millisecond precision
If you're using OpenResty then it provides for in-built millisecond time accuracy through the use of its ngx.now() function. Although if you want fine grained millisecond accuracy then you may need to call ngx.update_time() first. Or if you want to go one step further...
If you are using luajit enabled environment, such as OpenResty, then you can also use ffi to access C based time functions such as gettimeofday() e.g: (Note: The pcall check for the existence of struct timeval is only necessary if you're running it repeatedly e.g. via content_by_lua_file in OpenResty - without it you run into errors such as attempt to redefine 'timeval')
if pcall(ffi.typeof, "struct timeval") then
-- check if already defined.
else
-- undefined! let's define it!
ffi.cdef[[
typedef struct timeval {
long tv_sec;
long tv_usec;
} timeval;
int gettimeofday(struct timeval* t, void* tzp);
]]
end
local gettimeofday_struct = ffi.new("struct timeval")
local function gettimeofday()
ffi.C.gettimeofday(gettimeofday_struct, nil)
return tonumber(gettimeofday_struct.tv_sec) * 1000000 + tonumber(gettimeofday_struct.tv_usec)
end
Then the new lua gettimeofday() function can be called from lua to provide the clock time to microsecond level accuracy.
Indeed, one could take a similar approaching using clock_gettime() to obtain nanosecond accuracy.
Kevlar is correct.
An alternative to a custom DLL is Lua Alien
in openresty there is a function ngx.req.start_time.
From the docs:
Returns a floating-point number representing the timestamp (including milliseconds as the decimal part) when the current request was created.
You can use C function gettimeofday :
http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/000095399/functions/gettimeofday.html
Here C library 'ul_time', function sec_usec resides in 'time' global table and returns seconds, useconds. Copy DLL to Lua folder, open it with require 'ul_time'.
http://depositfiles.com/files/3g2fx7dij
If you're on a system with a GNU-compatible implementation of date that you can execute, here's a one-liner to get the Epoch time in milliseconds:
local function gethammertime()
return tonumber(assert(assert(io.popen'date +%s%3N'):read'a'))
end
Note that the assert calls are necessary to ensure that any failures to read or open date will propagate the errors, respectively. Also note that this relies on garbage collection (or finalizers, in Lua 5.4) to close the process handle: if using a pre-5.4 version of Lua and resource exhaustion is a concern, you may wish to extend this to three lines like Klesun's Windows-based answer and close the handle explicitly.
If your environment is Windows and you have access to system commands, you can get time of centiseconds precision with io.popen(command):
local handle = io.popen("echo %time%")
local result = handle:read("*a")
handle:close()
The result will hold string of hh:mm:ss.cc format: (with trailing line break)
"19:56:53.90\n"
Note, it's in local timezone, so you probably want to extract only the .cc part and combine it with epoch seconds from os.time().