Question

What is the best way to see how long it takes for your PHP script to run?

I was thinking something like this:

$start_time = time(); //this at the beginning
$end_time = time(); //this at the end
echo = $end_time-$start_time;

But how can I make it into something that is readable to me and make sense to me?

Answer 1

If you want any further granularity to your timing than seconds, you’ll need to use microtime() (Return current Unix timestamp with microseconds)

<?php
$time_start = microtime(true);

// Sleep for a while
usleep(100);

$time_end = microtime(true);
$time = $time_end - $time_start;

echo "Did nothing in $time seconds\n";
?>

** Below was added later **

As far as formatting this result further:

Well, depending on what you’re doing, you typically don’t have scripts going past a minute. You definitely shouldn’t have anything exceeding an hour. (If you do, you need to ask yourself what you are doing with your life)

With that in mind, all you need is simple calculations:

$tmp = floor($time);
$minutes = $tmp / 60;
$seconds = ($tmp % 60) + ($time - $tmp);

$output = 'Script took ';
if ($minutes > 0)   $output .= $minutes . ' minutes and ';
$output .= $seconds . ' seconds to complete.';
echo $output;

(This isn’t tested, and it could potentially be optimized, but should start you in the right direction)