How to benchmark efficiency of PHP script

Question

I want to know what is the best way to benchmark my PHP scripts. Does not matter if a cron job, or webpage or web service.

I know i can use microtime but is it really giving me the real time of a PHP script?

I want to test and benchmark different functions in PHP that do the same thing. For example, preg_match vs strpos or domdocument vs preg_match or preg_replace vs str_replace`

Example of a webpage:

<?php
// login.php

$start_time = microtime(TRUE);

session_start(); 
// do all my logic etc...

$end_time = microtime(TRUE);

echo $end_time - $start_time;

This will output: 0.0146126717 (varies all the time - but that is the last one I got). This means it took 0.015 or so to execute the PHP script.

Is there a better way?

Answer 1

Put it in a for loop to do each thing 1,000,000 times to get a more realistic number. And only start the timer just before the code you actually want to benchmark, then record the end time just after (i.e. don't start the timer before the session_start().

Also make sure the code is identical for each function you want to benchmark, with the exception of the function you are timing.

How the script is executed (cronjob, php from commandline, Apache, etc.) should not make a difference since you are only timing the relative difference between the speed of the different functions. So this ratio should remain the same.

If the computer on which you are running the benchmark has many other things going on, this could affect the benchmark results if there happens to be a spike in CPU or memory usage from another application while your benchmark is running. But as long as you have a lot of resources to spare on the computer then I don't think this will be a problem.

Answer 2

It is also good to keep your eyes on your PHP code and cross check with this link , in order to make sure that your coding itself is not potentially disturbing the performance of the app.

Answer 3

Try https://github.com/fotuzlab/appgati

It allows to define steps in the code and reports time, memory usage, server load etc between two steps.

Something like:

    $appgati->Step('1');

    // Do some code ...

    $appgati->Step('2');

    $report = $appgati->Report('1', '2');
    print_r($report);

Sample output array:

Array
(
    [Clock time in seconds] => 1.9502429962158
    [Time taken in User Mode in seconds] => 0.632039
    [Time taken in System Mode in seconds] => 0.024001
    [Total time taken in Kernel in seconds] => 0.65604
    [Memory limit in MB] => 128
    [Memory usage in MB] => 18.237907409668
    [Peak memory usage in MB] => 19.579357147217
    [Average server load in last minute] => 0.47
    [Maximum resident shared size in KB] => 44900
    [Integral shared memory size] => 0
    [Integral unshared data size] => 0
    [Integral unshared stack size] => 
    [Number of page reclaims] => 12102
    [Number of page faults] => 6
    [Number of block input operations] => 192
    [Number of block output operations] => 
    [Number of messages sent] => 0
    [Number of messages received] => 0
    [Number of signals received] => 0
    [Number of voluntary context switches] => 606
    [Number of involuntary context switches] => 99
)