:mod:`timeit` --- Measure execution time of small code snippets
.. module:: timeit :synopsis: Measure the execution time of small code snippets.
Source code: :source:`Lib/timeit.py`
.. index:: single: Benchmarking single: Performance
This module provides a simple way to time small bits of Python code. It has both a :ref:`timeit-command-line-interface` as well as a :ref:`callable <python-interface>` one. It avoids a number of common traps for measuring execution times. See also Tim Peters' introduction to the "Algorithms" chapter in the Python Cookbook, published by O'Reilly.
The following example shows how the :ref:`timeit-command-line-interface` can be used to compare three different expressions:
$ python3 -m timeit '"-".join(str(n) for n in range(100))'
10000 loops, best of 3: 30.2 usec per loop
$ python3 -m timeit '"-".join([str(n) for n in range(100)])'
10000 loops, best of 3: 27.5 usec per loop
$ python3 -m timeit '"-".join(map(str, range(100)))'
10000 loops, best of 3: 23.2 usec per loopThis can be achieved from the :ref:`python-interface` with:
>>> import timeit
>>> timeit.timeit('"-".join(str(n) for n in range(100))', number=10000)
0.3018611848820001
>>> timeit.timeit('"-".join([str(n) for n in range(100)])', number=10000)
0.2727368790656328
>>> timeit.timeit('"-".join(map(str, range(100)))', number=10000)
0.23702679807320237
Note however that :mod:`timeit` will automatically determine the number of repetitions only when the command-line interface is used. In the :ref:`timeit-examples` section you can find more advanced examples.
The module defines three convenience functions and a public class:
.. function:: timeit(stmt='pass', setup='pass', timer=<default timer>, number=1000000, globals=None)
Create a :class:`Timer` instance with the given statement, *setup* code and
*timer* function and run its :meth:`.timeit` method with *number* executions.
The optional *globals* argument specifies a namespace in which to execute the
code.
.. versionchanged:: 3.5
The optional *globals* parameter was added.
.. function:: repeat(stmt='pass', setup='pass', timer=<default timer>, repeat=3, number=1000000, globals=None)
Create a :class:`Timer` instance with the given statement, *setup* code and
*timer* function and run its :meth:`.repeat` method with the given *repeat*
count and *number* executions. The optional *globals* argument specifies a
namespace in which to execute the code.
.. versionchanged:: 3.5
The optional *globals* parameter was added.
.. function:: default_timer()
The default timer, which is always :func:`time.perf_counter`.
.. versionchanged:: 3.3
:func:`time.perf_counter` is now the default timer.
Class for timing execution speed of small code snippets.
The constructor takes a statement to be timed, an additional statement used
for setup, and a timer function. Both statements default to 'pass';
the timer function is platform-dependent (see the module doc string).
stmt and setup may also contain multiple statements separated by ;
or newlines, as long as they don't contain multi-line string literals. The
statement will by default be executed within timeit's namespace; this behavior
can be controlled by passing a namespace to globals.
To measure the execution time of the first statement, use the :meth:`.timeit` method. The :meth:`.repeat` and :meth:`.autorange` methods are convenience methods to call :meth:`.timeit` multiple times.
The execution time of setup is excluded from the overall timed execution run.
The stmt and setup parameters can also take objects that are callable without arguments. This will embed calls to them in a timer function that will then be executed by :meth:`.timeit`. Note that the timing overhead is a little larger in this case because of the extra function calls.
.. versionchanged:: 3.5 The optional *globals* parameter was added.
.. method:: Timer.timeit(number=1000000)
Time *number* executions of the main statement. This executes the setup
statement once, and then returns the time it takes to execute the main
statement a number of times, measured in seconds as a float.
The argument is the number of times through the loop, defaulting to one
million. The main statement, the setup statement and the timer function
to be used are passed to the constructor.
.. note::
By default, :meth:`.timeit` temporarily turns off :term:`garbage
collection` during the timing. The advantage of this approach is that
it makes independent timings more comparable. This disadvantage is
that GC may be an important component of the performance of the
function being measured. If so, GC can be re-enabled as the first
statement in the *setup* string. For example::
timeit.Timer('for i in range(10): oct(i)', 'gc.enable()').timeit()
.. method:: Timer.autorange(callback=None)
Automatically determine how many times to call :meth:`.timeit`.
This is a convenience function that calls :meth:`.timeit` repeatedly
so that the total time >= 0.2 second, returning the eventual
(number of loops, time taken for that number of loops). It calls
:meth:`.timeit` with *number* set to successive powers of ten (10,
100, 1000, ...) up to a maximum of one billion, until the time taken
is at least 0.2 second, or the maximum is reached.
If *callback* is given and is not *None*, it will be called after
each trial with two arguments: ``callback(number, time_taken)``.
.. versionadded:: 3.6
.. method:: Timer.repeat(repeat=3, number=1000000)
Call :meth:`.timeit` a few times.
This is a convenience function that calls the :meth:`.timeit` repeatedly,
returning a list of results. The first argument specifies how many times
to call :meth:`.timeit`. The second argument specifies the *number*
argument for :meth:`.timeit`.
.. note::
It's tempting to calculate mean and standard deviation from the result
vector and report these. However, this is not very useful.
In a typical case, the lowest value gives a lower bound for how fast
your machine can run the given code snippet; higher values in the
result vector are typically not caused by variability in Python's
speed, but by other processes interfering with your timing accuracy.
So the :func:`min` of the result is probably the only number you
should be interested in. After that, you should look at the entire
vector and apply common sense rather than statistics.
.. method:: Timer.print_exc(file=None)
Helper to print a traceback from the timed code.
Typical use::
t = Timer(...) # outside the try/except
try:
t.timeit(...) # or t.repeat(...)
except Exception:
t.print_exc()
The advantage over the standard traceback is that source lines in the
compiled template will be displayed. The optional *file* argument directs
where the traceback is sent; it defaults to :data:`sys.stderr`.
When called as a program from the command line, the following form is used:
python -m timeit [-n N] [-r N] [-u U] [-s S] [-t] [-c] [-h] [statement ...]
Where the following options are understood:
.. program:: timeit
.. cmdoption:: -n N, --number=N how many times to execute 'statement'
.. cmdoption:: -r N, --repeat=N how many times to repeat the timer (default 3)
.. cmdoption:: -s S, --setup=S statement to be executed once initially (default ``pass``)
.. cmdoption:: -p, --process measure process time, not wallclock time, using :func:`time.process_time` instead of :func:`time.perf_counter`, which is the default .. versionadded:: 3.3
.. cmdoption:: -t, --time use :func:`time.time` (deprecated)
.. cmdoption:: -u, --unit=U
specify a time unit for timer output; can select usec, msec, or sec
.. versionadded:: 3.5
.. cmdoption:: -c, --clock use :func:`time.clock` (deprecated)
.. cmdoption:: -v, --verbose print raw timing results; repeat for more digits precision
.. cmdoption:: -h, --help print a short usage message and exit
A multi-line statement may be given by specifying each line as a separate statement argument; indented lines are possible by enclosing an argument in quotes and using leading spaces. Multiple :option:`-s` options are treated similarly.
If :option:`-n` is not given, a suitable number of loops is calculated by trying successive powers of 10 until the total time is at least 0.2 seconds.
:func:`default_timer` measurements can be affected by other programs running on the same machine, so the best thing to do when accurate timing is necessary is to repeat the timing a few times and use the best time. The :option:`-r` option is good for this; the default of 3 repetitions is probably enough in most cases. You can use :func:`time.process_time` to measure CPU time.
Note
There is a certain baseline overhead associated with executing a pass statement. The code here doesn't try to hide it, but you should be aware of it. The baseline overhead can be measured by invoking the program without arguments, and it might differ between Python versions.
It is possible to provide a setup statement that is executed only once at the beginning:
$ python -m timeit -s 'text = "sample string"; char = "g"' 'char in text'
10000000 loops, best of 3: 0.0877 usec per loop
$ python -m timeit -s 'text = "sample string"; char = "g"' 'text.find(char)'
1000000 loops, best of 3: 0.342 usec per loop>>> import timeit
>>> timeit.timeit('char in text', setup='text = "sample string"; char = "g"')
0.41440500499993504
>>> timeit.timeit('text.find(char)', setup='text = "sample string"; char = "g"')
1.7246671520006203
The same can be done using the :class:`Timer` class and its methods:
>>> import timeit
>>> t = timeit.Timer('char in text', setup='text = "sample string"; char = "g"')
>>> t.timeit()
0.3955516149999312
>>> t.repeat()
[0.40193588800002544, 0.3960157959998014, 0.39594301399984033]
The following examples show how to time expressions that contain multiple lines. Here we compare the cost of using :func:`hasattr` vs. :keyword:`try`/:keyword:`except` to test for missing and present object attributes:
$ python -m timeit 'try:' ' str.__bool__' 'except AttributeError:' ' pass'
100000 loops, best of 3: 15.7 usec per loop
$ python -m timeit 'if hasattr(str, "__bool__"): pass'
100000 loops, best of 3: 4.26 usec per loop
$ python -m timeit 'try:' ' int.__bool__' 'except AttributeError:' ' pass'
1000000 loops, best of 3: 1.43 usec per loop
$ python -m timeit 'if hasattr(int, "__bool__"): pass'
100000 loops, best of 3: 2.23 usec per loop>>> import timeit >>> # attribute is missing >>> s = """\ ... try: ... str.__bool__ ... except AttributeError: ... pass ... """ >>> timeit.timeit(stmt=s, number=100000) 0.9138244460009446 >>> s = "if hasattr(str, '__bool__'): pass" >>> timeit.timeit(stmt=s, number=100000) 0.5829014980008651 >>> >>> # attribute is present >>> s = """\ ... try: ... int.__bool__ ... except AttributeError: ... pass ... """ >>> timeit.timeit(stmt=s, number=100000) 0.04215312199994514 >>> s = "if hasattr(int, '__bool__'): pass" >>> timeit.timeit(stmt=s, number=100000) 0.08588060699912603
To give the :mod:`timeit` module access to functions you define, you can pass a setup parameter which contains an import statement:
def test():
"""Stupid test function"""
L = [i for i in range(100)]
if __name__ == '__main__':
import timeit
print(timeit.timeit("test()", setup="from __main__ import test"))
Another option is to pass :func:`globals` to the globals parameter, which will cause the code to be executed within your current global namespace. This can be more convenient than individually specifying imports:
def f(x):
return x**2
def g(x):
return x**4
def h(x):
return x**8
import timeit
print(timeit.timeit('[func(42) for func in (f,g,h)]', globals=globals()))