TicTocTimer

A high-resolution timer for Windows, OS X, and Linux.

Performance timers are useful for profiling and optimizing code, but using one typically involves system specific calls. So, I wrapped these up and put them behind a simple API.

Incorporating into your project

• Either build and link against the static library.
• Or just copy tictoc.[ch] to your project.
• On linux, you'll need to link against librt.

With CMake:

Unpack the source tree (or use git submodule) to a subdirectory in your project. For example, modules/tictoc.

  add_subdirectory(modules/tictoc) #adds targets for the static library, tests, and docs
  link_directories(${tictoc_BINARY_DIR})
  include_directories(modules/tictoc)
  ...
  target_link_libraries(my-project tictoc)

Usage

Simple example:

#include "tictoc.h"
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{ 
  TicTocTimer clock = tic();
  time_consuming_operation();
  printf("Elapsed time %f seconds.\n",toc(&clock)); // prints time since last tic()  
  another_time_consuming_operation();
  printf("Elapsed time %f seconds.\n",toc(&clock)); // prints time since last toc()
}

An even simpler example:

#include "tictoc.h"
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{ 
  tic();
  printf("%f\n",toc(0));
}

The last example uses a global timer. Using the global timer from different threads may produce strange results.

Reliability

The test suite runs tests for different resolutions that rely on some implementation of usleep() to pause for semi-controlled lengths of time. However, this isn't a reliable way to measure the actual precision of your system's timer.

You'll have to measure that for yourself according to what is appropriate for your application.

Details

• On Windows, tictoc uses QueryPerformanceCounter
• On OS X, tictoc uses mach_absolute_time
• On Linux, tictoc uses clock_gettime