AttributeError: module 'time' has no attribute 'clock' in Python 3.8

Question

I have written code to generate public and private keys. It works great at Python 3.7 but it fails in Python 3.8. I don\'t know how it fails in the latest version. Help me w

Answer 1

time.clock() was removed in 3.8 because it had platform-dependent behavior:

• On Unix, this returns the current processor time (in seconds)

• On Windows, this returns wall-clock time (in seconds)

  # I ran this test on my dual-boot system as demonstration:
  print(time.clock()); time.sleep(10); print(time.clock())
  # Linux:            # Windows:
  # 0.0382            # 26.1224
  # 0.0384            # 36.1566
  

So which function to pick instead?

• Processor Time: This is how long this specific process spends actively being executed on the CPU. Sleep, waiting for a web request, or time when only other processes are executed will not contribute to this.

  • Use time.process_time()

• Wall-Clock Time: This refers to how much time has passed "on a clock hanging on the wall", i.e. outside real time.

  • Use time.perf_counter()

    • time.time() also measures wall-clock time but can be reset, so you could go back in time
    • time.monotonic() cannot be reset (monotonic = only goes forward) but has lower precision than time.perf_counter()