How to benchmark Matlab processes?

Question

Searching for an idea how to avoid using loop in my Matlab code, I found following comments under one question on SE:

The statement \"for loops are sl

Answer 1

You can use the profiler to assess how much time your functions, and the blocks of code within them, are taking.

>> profile on; % Starts the profiler
>> myfunctiontorun( ); % This can be a function, script or block of code
>> profile viewer; % Opens the viewer showing you how much time everything took

Viewer also clears the current profile data for next time.

Bear in mind, profile does tend to slow execution a bit, but I believe it does so in a uniform way across everything.

Obviously if your function is very quick, you might find you don't get reliable results so if you can run it many times or extend the computation that would improve matters.

If it's really simple stuff you're testing, you can also just time it using tic and toc:

>> tic; % Start the timer
>> myfunctionname( );
>> toc; % End the timer and display elapsed time

Also if you want multiple timers, you can assign them to variables:

>> mytimer = tic;
>> myfunctionname( );
>> toc(mytimer);

Finally, if you want to store the elapsed time instead of display it:

>> myresult = toc;