Question

I am doing a performance comparison test. I want to record the run time for my c++ test application and compare it under different circumstances. The two cases to be compare are: 1) a file system driver is installed and active and 2) also when that same file system driver is not installed and active.

A series of tests will be conducted on several operating systems and the two runs described above will be done for each operating system and it’s setup. Results will only be compared between the two cases for a given operating system and setup.

I understand that when running a c/c++ application within an operating system that is not a real-time system there is no way to get the real time it took for the application to run. I don’t think this is a big concern as long as the test application runs for a fairly long period of time, therefore making the scheduling, priorities, switching, etc of the CPU negligible.

Edited: For Windows platform only
How can I generate some accurate application run time results within my test application?

Answer 1

You can put this

#if _DEBUG
time_t start = time(NULL);
#endif

and finish with this

#if _DEBUG
time end = time(NULL);
#endif

in your int main() method. Naturally you’ll have to return the difference either to a log or cout it.