Timer "event" without Dialog?

[William Fletcher]

Is it possible to time the execution of a PBDLL program without creating or showing a dialog? I want to time the response of a synchronous SHELL but not show any dialog.

TIA.

[Eric Pearson]

Won't the good ol' TIMER function do what you want?

DIM dpStart AS LOCAL DOUBLE
dpStart = TIMER
SHELL (whatever)
dpElapsed = TIMER-dpStart

It gets a little more complex if the shell operation could "cross midnight" (start before and end after 23:59:59) but you get the idea...

-- Eric


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[Lance Edmonds]

Other options, probably too wild, but just to demonstrate that there are quite a few alternative methods once we use a bit of lateral thinking:

1. GetTickCOunt() has a resolution in milliseconds and only wraps at 49.7 days. Save the count before the SHELL, and subtrack it after - exactly the same technique as Eric's TIMER suggestion above.

2. If you are using NT, then you can query "System Up Time" in the HKEY_PERFORMANCE_DATA section of the registry.

3. Create a "log" file before and after the SHELL, and re-engineer the values stored in the FILETIME structure (which stores the time/date as a "64-bit value representing the number of 100-nanosecond intervals since January 1, 1601"

4. Use the GetSystemTime() API before and after, etc.




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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Eric Pearson]

As long as we're creating a list...

1) The CoFileTimeNow API can be used to obtain a QUAD integer with the same properties that Lance described in (3) above, without creating a file. "File time" in this case refers to a data format, not an association with an actual file. The nice thing about a FileTime is that it never rolls over. (At least not for 30,000 years, or something like that, so it would be a Y32K problem.)

2) Or...

    MSGBOX "Click OK and start your stopwatch..."
    SHELL (whatever)
    MSGBOX "Stop the stopwatch NOW!"

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[Enoch S Ceshkovsky]

Here's a sample of using the performance counters.

DECLARE FUNCTION QueryPerformanceCounter LIB "KERNEL32.DLL" ALIAS "QueryPerformanceCounter" (lpPerformanceCount AS QUAD) AS LONG
DECLARE FUNCTION QueryPerformanceFrequency LIB "KERNEL32.DLL" ALIAS "QueryPerformanceFrequency" (lpFrequency AS QUAD) AS LONG
FUNCTION PBMAIN
  DIM freq AS QUAD, a AS QUAD, b AS QUAD,overhead AS QUAD, i AS LONG, results AS EXT
  queryperformancefrequency freq
  queryperformancecounter a
  queryperformancecounter b
  overhead = b-a
  queryperformancecounter a
  MSGBOX "close me"
  queryperformancecounter b
  results = ((b - a)-overhead) / freq
  MSGBOX FORMAT$(results,"##0.0000") & " seconds."
END FUNCTION

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[Colin Schmidt]

Hello,

The PerformanceTimer is a nice tool, my AMD 350 is accurate to over 1 billion parts of a second...

But, if it is counting that fast, how long until it rolls over? The Win32API help file didn't say anything about roll over.

So I was wondering, if you don't mind, could you share your experience using it?

Thanks,
Colin Schmidt

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Colin Schmidt & James Duffy, Praxis Enterprises, Canada

[Lance Edmonds]

It is processor dependent. It is also documented in WIN32.HLP... bring up "QueryPerformanceCounter" and click OVERVIEW, then scroll about 3 pages in.

Basically, you can calculate the period yourself, using "QueryPerformanceFrequency". A LARGE_INTEGER (as WIN32.HLP specifies is equivalent to a QUAD in PowerBASIC.


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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Enoch S Ceshkovsky]

Lance hits the nail on the head again.
Just integer divide 9,220,000,000,000,000,000 by Freq.
That should give you the number of seconds before rollover.

DECLARE FUNCTION QueryPerformanceFrequency LIB "KERNEL32.DLL" ALIAS "QueryPerformanceFrequency" (lpFrequency AS QUAD) AS LONG
FUNCTION PBMAIN
  LOCAL result AS QUAD, freq AS QUAD
  QueryPerformanceFrequency Freq
  result = 9220000000000000000&& \ freq
  ' seconds \ minutes \ hours \ days \ years
  MSGBOX STR$(result \ 60 \ 60 \ 24 \ 365)
END FUNCTION

My P3-500 was about 81676 years.


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