[Chapter 39] 39.4 Average Command Runtimes with runtime
Author: Jerry Peek, Tim O'Reilly & Mike Loukides
Date: 1998-08-04T21:50:13Z

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| Chapter 39 Time and Performance |

## 39.4 Average Command Runtimes with runtime

runtime | The time command (39.2) will time a single run of a command - but the results can vary from run to run. The runtime script runs a command the number of times you specify, then averages the results. For example:

>     % runtime -5 getdata 0.5 outfile
>        ...wait a while...
>     runtime summary - 5 runs of
>        % getdata 0.5 outfile
>     (working directory = /users/jerry/.src/getdata)

>     First run started at: Thu Mar 19 09:33:58 EST 1992
>     Last run finished at: Thu Mar 19 09:36:41 EST 1992
>     ------------------------

>      RUN #      ***INDIVIDUAL RESULTS***
>          1   1.0u 7.4s 1:06 12% 0+108k 0+0io 0pf+0w
>          2   0.2u 0.8s 0:05 16% 0+128k 0+0io 0pf+0w
>          3   0.2u 1.3s 0:11 13% 0+116k 0+0io 0pf+0w
>          4   0.4u 2.7s 0:25 12% 0+108k 0+0io 0pf+0w
>          5   0.9u 5.9s 0:53 12% 0+108k 0+0io 0pf+0w

>     AVERAGES:
>      0.54u  3.62s 0:32 0+113k 0+0io 0pf+0w

It's good for testing different versions of a program to find the fastest (or slowest!). If you're writing a program that will run a lot, shaving 10% or 20% off its time can be worth the work.

Note that the command you run can't have any redirection in it; that's because runtime does some redirection of its own. You can redirect the output of runtime into a log file though, and run the whole mess in the background. For example:

>     % runtime -5 getdata 0.5 outfile > runtime.out &
>     [1] 12233

The summary will go to the runtime.out file.

- JP

39.3 The csh time variable |  | 39.5 Why Is the System So Slow?