What is the Python equivalent of Matlabs tic and toc functions?

What is the Python equivalent of Matlabs tic and toc functions?

Apart from timeit which ThiefMaster mentioned, a simple way to do it is just (after importing time):

t = time.time()
# do stuff
elapsed = time.time() - t

I have a helper class I like to use:

class Timer(object):
    def __init__(self, name=None):
        self.name = name

    def __enter__(self):
        self.tstart = time.time()

    def __exit__(self, type, value, traceback):
        if self.name:
            print([%s] % self.name,)
        print(Elapsed: %s % (time.time() - self.tstart))

It can be used as a context manager:

with Timer(foo_stuff):
   # do some foo
   # do some stuff

Sometimes I find this technique more convenient than timeit – it all depends on what you want to measure.

I had the same question when I migrated to python from Matlab. With the help of this thread I was able to construct an exact analog of the Matlab tic() and toc() functions. Simply insert the following code at the top of your script.

import time

def TicTocGenerator():
    # Generator that returns time differences
    ti = 0           # initial time
    tf = time.time() # final time
    while True:
        ti = tf
        tf = time.time()
        yield tf-ti # returns the time difference

TicToc = TicTocGenerator() # create an instance of the TicTocGen generator

# This will be the main function through which we define both tic() and toc()
def toc(tempBool=True):
    # Prints the time difference yielded by generator instance TicToc
    tempTimeInterval = next(TicToc)
    if tempBool:
        print( Elapsed time: %f seconds.n %tempTimeInterval )

def tic():
    # Records a time in TicToc, marks the beginning of a time interval
    toc(False)

Thats it! Now we are ready to fully use tic() and toc() just as in Matlab. For example

tic()

time.sleep(5)

toc() # returns Elapsed time: 5.00 seconds.

Actually, this is more versatile than the built-in Matlab functions. Here, you could create another instance of the TicTocGenerator to keep track of multiple operations, or just to time things differently. For instance, while timing a script, we can now time each piece of the script seperately, as well as the entire script. (I will provide a concrete example)

TicToc2 = TicTocGenerator() # create another instance of the TicTocGen generator

def toc2(tempBool=True):
    # Prints the time difference yielded by generator instance TicToc2
    tempTimeInterval = next(TicToc2)
    if tempBool:
    print( Elapsed time 2: %f seconds.n %tempTimeInterval )

def tic2():
    # Records a time in TicToc2, marks the beginning of a time interval
    toc2(False)

Now you should be able to time two separate things: In the following example, we time the total script and parts of a script separately.

tic()

time.sleep(5)

tic2()

time.sleep(3)

toc2() # returns Elapsed time 2: 5.00 seconds.

toc() # returns Elapsed time: 8.00 seconds.

Actually, you do not even need to use tic() each time. If you have a series of commands that you want to time, then you can write

tic()

time.sleep(1)

toc() # returns Elapsed time: 1.00 seconds.

time.sleep(2)

toc() # returns Elapsed time: 2.00 seconds.

time.sleep(3)

toc() # returns Elapsed time: 3.00 seconds.

# and so on...

I hope that this is helpful.

What is the Python equivalent of Matlabs tic and toc functions?

The absolute best analog of tic and toc would be to simply define them in python.

def tic():
    #Homemade version of matlab tic and toc functions
    import time
    global startTime_for_tictoc
    startTime_for_tictoc = time.time()

def toc():
    import time
    if startTime_for_tictoc in globals():
        print Elapsed time is  + str(time.time() - startTime_for_tictoc) +  seconds.
    else:
        print Toc: start time not set

Then you can use them as:

tic()
# do stuff
toc()