How to use timeit when timing a function

python timeit
Robert Spratlin picture Robert Spratlin · Sep 25, 2013 · Viewed 11.5k times · Source

Let me start off by saying I know almost nothing about python but have to write a program in three different languages (already done in java and c++).

I need to be able to time the execution of a method a certain number of times and then print the time it took for the over-all execution time.

I.e.

I have function A (which is performSearch(arrayTest) where arrayTest is an array of known size). A is executed 10 times

I need to be able to time how long it took from before A was executed to after A was executed.

Answer

Noelkd picture Noelkd · Sep 25, 2013

You can read how to use timeit here.

And assuming you have a function called performSearch in the same file that your running timeit from the following would work. 

import timeit

def performSearch(array):
    array.sort()


arrayTest = ["X"]*1000

if __name__ == "__main__":
    print timeit.timeit("performSearch(arrayTest)","from __main__ import performSearch, arrayTest",number=10)

Which returns:

0.000162031766607

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