Stopwatch function in R

Question

Is there an R timer or stopwatch function similar to MATLAB\'s tic/toc?

Answer 1

There are plenty of profiling tools in R, as Dirk mentioned. If you want the simplicity of tic/toc, then you can do it in R too.

EDIT: I've cannibalised the garbage collection functionality from the MATLAB package, and tic now lets you choose whether you are interested in total elapsed time or just the user time.

tic <- function(gcFirst = TRUE, type=c("elapsed", "user.self", "sys.self"))
{
   type <- match.arg(type)
   assign(".type", type, envir=baseenv())
   if(gcFirst) gc(FALSE)
   tic <- proc.time()[type]         
   assign(".tic", tic, envir=baseenv())
   invisible(tic)
}

toc <- function()
{
   type <- get(".type", envir=baseenv())
   toc <- proc.time()[type]
   tic <- get(".tic", envir=baseenv())
   print(toc - tic)
   invisible(toc)
}

Usage is, e.g., tic(); invisible(qr(matrix(runif(1e6), nrow=1e3))); toc()