[IamBob]

What's the easiest way to time a method? It doesn't have to be really precise. I just need to compare two methods that do the same thing to see which is faster.

Code would be much appreciated.

TIA!

[ali]

You said "method," so I'm assuming you're using ObjC and Cocoa. You can use NSDate easily:

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1"face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial">code:</font><HR><pre><font size=1 face=courier>NSTimeInterval t = [NSDate timeIntervalSinceReferenceDate];

<font color = brown>/* <font color = green>do</font> whatever you want to <font color = green>do</font> */</font>

t = [NSDate timeIntervalSinceReferenceDate] - t;

<font color = brown>/* So now t holds the elapsed time in seconds (as a <font color = green>double</font>) */</font>
</font>[/code]

If you are not using Cocoa, CFDate (in CoreFoundation) also has similar functionality.

Ali

[IamBob]

Yeah, your assumption was correct. I suppose "method" could've meant I was using Java though.

Thanks.

[Wixar]

The Sampler application included with the developer tools is a good way to benchmark methods and especially to find bottlenecks in your app. This page shows you how to use it.
http://www.mulle-kybernetik.com/opti-1.html

-Peter

[IamBob]

Yeah, Sampler may come in handy some time. I tinkered with it in the Public Beta. Thanks for the link.

I still like hand timing my stuff though. I just had to methods that did the same thing and wanted to see which was faster. Turned out that one method was about 45% faster when working on small sets and the other was about 30% faster when working on large sets.

So..
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1"face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial">code:</font><HR><pre><font size=1 face=courier>
<font color = green>if</font> (set is huge) [<font color = purple>self</font> useFastForHuge:set];
<font color = green>else</font>
[<font color = purple>self</font> useFastForSmall:set];
</font>[/code]