Question

Is there a high precision timer that I can use to benchmark the amount of time a series of operations/statements take when executing ? A timer that returns the number of seconds since epoch would be insufficient, as the resolution is in seconds.

I am thinking that the general implementation would be:

1. Get starting time in milliseconds.
2. Execute statements.
3. Get ending time in milliseconds.
4. Elapsed time = end – start.

Thanks,

Scott

Answer 1

The Stopwatch class works well for this. Note that it measures wall clock time, not code execution time.

    Stopwatch sw= new Stopwatch();
    sw.Start();
    DoTimeConsumingOperation();
    sw.Stop();
    Console.WriteLine(sw.Elapsed); // in milliseconds

The Stopwatch measures elapsed time by
counting timer ticks in the underlying
timer mechanism. If the installed
hardware and operating system support
a high-resolution performance counter,
then the Stopwatch class uses that
counter to measure elapsed time.
Otherwise, the Stopwatch class uses
the system timer to measure elapsed
time. Use the Frequency and
IsHighResolution fields to determine
the precision and resolution of the
Stopwatch timing implementation.