trivial-time

Portably get timing stats for a piece of code (and benchmark it too)

trivial-time allows to portably get timing stats for a piece of code. In most cases, the stats trivial-time provides are as rich as implementation-specific time stats. The main benefits are:

• The stats are exposed via with-time macro, so one can easily roll their own time re-implementation.
• There’s benchmark macro for quick benchmarking for a piece of code.
• The format of time is prettier (at least to me) than most implementation-specific time listings.

Getting Started

Clone the Git repository:

  git clone --recursive https://github.com/aartaka/trivial-time ~/.local/share/common-lisp/source/

And then load "trivial-time" in the REPL:

  (asdf:load-system :trivial-time)
  ;; or, if you use Quicklisp
  (ql:quickload :trivial-time)

Examples

The main utility provided by trivial-time is with-time. It allows to bind a number of timing stats for a piece of code.

  (trivial-time:with-time (&key aborted gc-count gc allocated) ;; Binding
      (lists lists-p) ;; Multiple value args
      ;; Form to run
      (loop for i below 1000
            collect (make-list i :initial-element :hello)
              into lists
            finally (return (values lists t)))
    (unless aborted
      (format t "Bytes allocated: ~a, GC ran ~d times for ~a seconds"
              allocated gc-count gc)))
  ;; Bytes allocated: 7997952, GC ran NIL times for 0 seconds

Use of benchmark:

  (trivial-time:benchmark (20) ;; Repeat count.
    (loop for i below 1000 collect (make-list i) finally (return 1)))
  ;; Benchmark for 20 runs of
  ;; (LOOP FOR I BELOW 1000
  ;;       COLLECT (MAKE-LIST I)
  ;;       FINALLY (RETURN 1))
  ;; -                   MINIMUM        AVERAGE        MAXIMUM        TOTAL
  ;; REAL-TIME           0.0            0.00175        0.019          0.035
  ;; USER-RUN-TIME       0.000668       0.0016634      0.016315       0.033268
  ;; SYSTEM-RUN-TIME     0.0            0.00021195     0.003794       0.004239
  ;; GC-RUN-TIME         0.0            0.00085        0.017          0.017
  ;; BYTES-ALLOCATED     7997952.0      8008154.5      8030464.0      160163090.0

Provided time re-implementation (prototype, not production ready:)

  (trivial-time:time
   (loop for i below 1000
         collect (make-list i)
         finally (return 1)))
  ;; Time spent successfully evaluating:
  ;; (LOOP FOR I BELOW 1000 ...)
  ;; Real time:         0.000000 seconds
  ;; Run time (system): 0.000085 seconds
  ;; Run time (user):   0.000857 seconds
  ;; CPU cycles:        2,274,058
  ;; GC time:           0.000000 seconds
  ;; Allocated:         8,024,240 bytes