Question

Without using a stop watch how can I determine how much time my computation actually took?

Answer 1

I wanted a way to test which algorithms are faster. Here is some python code that you can use to determine how much time it took for a computation and, therefore, compare different algorithm efficiencies.

#import the time library
import time

#get a reading of the clock and assign that to variable start
start=time.clock()

#carry out some computation

end=time.clock()

time_elapsed=end - start

print time_elapsed

Answer 2

i type in terminal:
time python programname.py
and it shows it :D

Answer 3

very cool Tomas. terminal also gives breakdown. alas, you have to have access to terminal. :) i guess too bad if someone is a win user.

Answer 4

"i guess too bad if someone is a win user."
You can say that again!!

:)

Answer 5

too bad that windows user is using windows

Answer 6

Do you suppose there is a way to get a print statement to kick out a float value in time? Anybody know of a way to get a time stamp when it's called for, then essentially "create" a stopwatch in the program?

Answer 7

In Java, use System.nanoTime().
But do beware that in Java, elapse time varies a lot because of memory management (e.g. garbage collection) behind the scenes.