Accurate timing of functions in python

Question

I\'m programming in python on windows and would like to accurately measure the time it takes for a function to run. I have written a function \"time_it\" that takes another

Answer 1

If you want to time a python method even if block you measure may throw, one good approach is to use with statement. Define some Timer class as

import time

class Timer:    
    def __enter__(self):
        self.start = time.clock()
        return self

    def __exit__(self, *args):
        self.end = time.clock()
        self.interval = self.end - self.start

Then you may want to time a connection method that may throw. Use

import httplib

with Timer() as t:
    conn = httplib.HTTPConnection('google.com')
    conn.request('GET', '/')

print('Request took %.03f sec.' % t.interval)

__exit()__ method will be called even if the connection request thows. More precisely, you'd have you use try finally to see the result in case it throws, as with

try:
    with Timer() as t:
        conn = httplib.HTTPConnection('google.com')
        conn.request('GET', '/')
finally:
    print('Request took %.03f sec.' % t.interval)

More details here.