ZSH: How to time a block of code?

Question

In bash I am able to write a script that contains something like this:

{ time {

#series of commands
echo "something"
echo "another command"
echo "blah blah blah"

} } 2> $LOGFILE

In ZSH the equivalent code does not work and I can not figure out how to make it work for me. This code works but I don't exactly know how to get it to wrap multiple commands.

{ time echo "something" } 2>&1

I know I can create a new script and put the commands in there then time the execution properly, but is there a way to do it either using functions or a similar method to the bash above?

Answer 1

Try the following instead:

{ time ( echo hello ; sleep 10s;  echo hola ; ) } 2>&1 

Answer 2

If you want to profile your code you have a few alternatives:

• Time subshell execution like:

  time ( commands ... )

• Use REPORTTIME to check for slow commands:

  export REPORTTIME=3 # display commands with execution time >= 3 seconds

• setop xtrace as explained here

• The zprof module

Answer 3

Try replace { with ( ? I think this should help

Answer 4

You can also use the times POSIX shell builtin in conjunction with functions. It will report the user and system time used by the shell and its children. See http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/times.html

Example:

somefunc() {
    code you want to time here
    times
}

The reason for using a shell function is that it creates a new shell context, at the start of which times is all zeros (try it). Otherwise the result contains the contribution of the current shell as well. If that is what you want, forget about the function and put times last in your script.