Windows equivalent to UNIX “time” command

Question

So, Unix has a time command that lets users time their code/other things. I was wondering if the Windows command line has anything similar.

Also, I asked a previous question regarding the Linux command line here. Can we do the same for Windows? If so, how?

Answer 1

You can cheat a little with a batch script...

@echo off
echo %time% < nul
cmd /c %1
echo %time% < nul

Then run your program as an argument to this script...

timer myprogram.exe

and for arguments...

timer "myprogram.exe -sw1 -sw2"

example output:

17:59:20.02
some text
17:59:20.03

place the batch script somewhere in your PATH variable, e.g. C:\Windows\System32 and name it timer.cmd. Of course there is a small performance hit of forking a second cmd instance, although very minimal.

Answer 2

Use Powershell

Measure-Command {start-process whateveryouwantexecute -Wait}

Edited to your need @efficiencylsBliss:

Measure-Command {start-process java -argumentlist "whateverargumentisneeded" -wait}

Answer 3

I searched for "command time for windows" on google on the first result gives:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/673523/how-to-measure-execution-time-of-command-in-windows-command-line

Answer 4

There is no direct equivalent to Unix time on Windows.

The University of Georgia have a brief list of Windows commands for Unix users

I find the older Windows command prompt and .bat scripting is rather limited compared to Unix shells but there are some facilities for looping over files etc. CommandWindows.com has some tips

You could either install bash on Windows (e.g. by installing CygWin) or learn Windows Powershell (which I am assuming has a means of doing something equivalent).

Answer 5

The output for your code can be piped to a file: java test <inputfile> | Out-File d:\a.txt

For measuring how long it takes you have to encapsulate it in Measure-Commmand:

Measure-Commmand {java test <inputfile> | Out-File d:\a.txt}

Answer 6

If you try to use PowerShell with Measure-Command be aware that there may be some unexpected gotchas. My command writes binary data to a file using > redirection but PowerShell added a BOM to the beginning of the file and a CRLF line break after every write!

Answer 7

I'm using Win XP, for some reason, timeit.exe is not working for me. I found another alternative: ptime:

ptime 1.0 - Accurately measure program execution time

ptime will run any specified command and parameters, and measure the execution time (run time) in seconds, accurate to 5 millisecond or better. It is an automatic process timer, or program timer used for benchmark purposes.