How do I measure execution time of a command on th

Question

Is there a built-in way to measure execution time of a command on the Windows command line?

Answer 1

Not quite as elegant as some of the functionality on Unix, but create a cmd file which looks like:

@echo off
time < nul
yourexecutable.exe > c:\temp\output.txt
time < nul
rem on newer windows system you can try time /T

That will display the start and stop times like so:

The current time is: 10:31:57.92
Enter the new time:
The current time is: 10:32:05.94
Enter the new time:

Answer 2

The following script uses only "cmd.exe" and outputs the number of milliseconds from the time a pipeline is created to the time that the process preceding the script exits. i.e., Type your command, and pipe the to the script. Example: "timeout 3 | runtime.cmd" should yield something like "2990." If you need both the runtime output and the stdin output, redirect stdin before the pipe - ex: "dir /s 1>temp.txt | runtime.cmd" would dump the output of the "dir" command to "temp.txt" and would print the runtime to the console.

:: --- runtime.cmd ----
@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion

:: find target for recursive calls
if not "%1"=="" (
    shift /1
    goto :%1
    exit /b
)

:: set pipeline initialization time
set t1=%time%

:: wait for stdin
more > nul

:: set time at which stdin was ready
set t2=!time!

::parse t1
set t1=!t1::= !
set t1=!t1:.= !
set t1=!t1: 0= !

:: parse t2
set t2=!t2::= !
set t2=!t2:.= !
set t2=!t2: 0= !

:: calc difference
pushd %~dp0
for /f %%i in ('%0 calc !t1!') do for /f %%j in ('%0 calc !t2!') do (
    set /a t=%%j-%%i
    echo !t!
)
popd
exit /b
goto :eof

:calc
set /a t=(%1*(3600*1000))+(%2*(60*1000))+(%3*1000)+(%4)
echo !t!
goto :eof

endlocal

Answer 3

The following script emulates *nix epoch time, but it is local and regional. It should handle calender edge cases including leap years. If Cygwin is available, epoch values can be compared by specifying the Cygwin option.

I'm in EST and the difference reported is 4 hours which is relatively correct. There are some interesting solutions to remove the TZ and regional dependencies, but nothing trivial that I noticed.

@ECHO off
SETLOCAL EnableDelayedExpansion

::
::  Emulates local epoch seconds
::

:: Call passing local date and time
CALL :SECONDS "%DATE%" "%TIME%"
IF !SECONDS! LEQ 0 GOTO END

:: Not testing - print and exit
IF NOT "%~1"=="cygwin" (
    ECHO !SECONDS!
    GOTO END
)

:: Call on Cygwin to get epoch time
FOR /F %%c IN ('C:\cygwin\bin\date +%%s') DO SET EPOCH=%%c

:: Show the results
ECHO Local Seconds: !SECONDS!
ECHO Epoch Seconds: !EPOCH!

:: Calculate difference between script and Cygwin
SET /A HOURS=(!EPOCH!-!SECONDS!)/3600
SET /A FRAC=(!EPOCH!-!SECONDS!)%%3600

:: Delta hours shown reflect TZ
ECHO Delta Hours: !HOURS! Remainder: !FRAC!

GOTO END

:SECONDS
SETLOCAL  EnableDelayedExpansion

    :: Expecting values from caller
    SET DATE=%~1
    SET TIME=%~2

    :: Emulate Unix epoch time without considering TZ
    SET "SINCE_YEAR=1970"

    :: Regional constraint! Expecting date and time in the following formats:
    ::   Sun 03/08/2015   Day MM/DD/YYYY
    ::   20:04:53.64         HH:MM:SS
    SET VALID_DATE=0
    ECHO !DATE! | FINDSTR /R /C:"^... [0-9 ][0-9]/[0-9 ][0-9]/[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]" > nul && SET VALID_DATE=1
    SET VALID_TIME=0
    ECHO !TIME! | FINDSTR /R /C:"^[0-9 ][0-9]:[0-9 ][0-9]:[0-9 ][0-9]" > nul && SET VALID_TIME=1
    IF NOT "!VALID_DATE!!VALID_TIME!"=="11" (
        IF !VALID_DATE! EQU 0  ECHO Unsupported Date value: !DATE! 1>&2
        IF !VALID_TIME! EQU 0  ECHO Unsupported Time value: !TIME! 1>&2
        SET SECONDS=0
        GOTO SECONDS_END
    )

    :: Parse values
    SET "YYYY=!DATE:~10,4!"
    SET "MM=!DATE:~4,2!"
    SET "DD=!DATE:~7,2!"
    SET "HH=!TIME:~0,2!"
    SET "NN=!TIME:~3,2!"
    SET "SS=!TIME:~6,2!"
    SET /A YEARS=!YYYY!-!SINCE_YEAR!
    SET /A DAYS=!YEARS!*365

    :: Bump year if after February  - want leading zeroes for this test
    IF "!MM!!DD!" GEQ "0301" SET /A YEARS+=1

    :: Remove leading zeros that can cause octet probs for SET /A
    FOR %%r IN (MM,DD,HH,NN,SS) DO (
        SET "v=%%r"
        SET "t=!%%r!"
        SET /A N=!t:~0,1!0
        IF 0 EQU !N! SET "!v!=!t:~1!"
    )

    :: Increase days according to number of leap years
    SET /A DAYS+=(!YEARS!+3)/4-(!SINCE_YEAR!%%4+3)/4

    :: Increase days by preceding months of current year
    FOR %%n IN (31:1,28:2,31:3,30:4,31:5,30:6,31:7,31:8,30:9,31:10,30:11) DO (
        SET "n=%%n"
        IF !MM! GTR !n:~3! SET /A DAYS+=!n:~0,2!
    )

    :: Multiply and add it all together
    SET /A SECONDS=(!DAYS!+!DD!-1)*86400+!HH!*3600+!NN!*60+!SS!

:SECONDS_END
ENDLOCAL & SET "SECONDS=%SECONDS%"
GOTO :EOF

:END
ENDLOCAL

Answer 4

1. In the directory where your program is, type notepad mytimer.bat, click 'yes' to create a new file.

2. Paste the code below, replacing YourApp.exe with your program, then save.

   @echo off
   date /t
   time /t
   YourApp.exe
   date /t
   time /t
   

3. Type mytimer.bat in the command line then press Enter.

Answer 5

If you are using Windows 2003 (note that windows server 2008 and later are not supported) you can use The Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit, which contains timeit.exe that displays detailed execution stats. Here is an example, timing the command "timeit -?":

C:\>timeit timeit -?
Invalid switch -?
Usage: TIMEIT [-f filename] [-a] [-c] [-i] [-d] [-s] [-t] [-k keyname | -r keyname] [-m mask] [commandline...]
where:        -f specifies the name of the database file where TIMEIT
                 keeps a history of previous timings.  Default is .\timeit.dat
              -k specifies the keyname to use for this timing run
              -r specifies the keyname to remove from the database.  If
                 keyname is followed by a comma and a number then it will
                 remove the slowest (positive number) or fastest (negative)
                 times for that keyname.
              -a specifies that timeit should display average of all timings
                 for the specified key.
              -i specifies to ignore non-zero return codes from program
              -d specifies to show detail for average
              -s specifies to suppress system wide counters
              -t specifies to tabular output
              -c specifies to force a resort of the data base
              -m specifies the processor affinity mask

Version Number:   Windows NT 5.2 (Build 3790)
Exit Time:        7:38 am, Wednesday, April 15 2009
Elapsed Time:     0:00:00.000
Process Time:     0:00:00.015
System Calls:     731
Context Switches: 299
Page Faults:      515
Bytes Read:       0
Bytes Written:    0
Bytes Other:      298

You can get TimeIt in the Windows 2003 Resource Kit. Download it here.

Answer 6

I use freeware called "GS Timer".

Just make a batch file like this:

timer
yourapp.exe
timer /s

If you need a set of times, just pipe the output of timer /s into a .txt file.

You can get it here: Gammadyne's Free DOS Utilities

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The resolution is 0.1 seconds.