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Hi,Code:.
.
time (&start);
for(i= 0; i < 110; i++)
{
for(j= 0; j< 110; j++)
{
cout << i ;
cout << j;
.
.
.
}
}
time (&end);
dif = difftime (end,start);
.
.
I wanted to measure time for my double loop to run its course . What shocked me is the fact that diff is longer (greater) when I comment out these two "cout lines" all other parameters being equal. How is it possible?
Thank you
That really doesn't make any sense. You sure about it?
Well, time() is a very imprecise way to measure time... clock() gives a much better resolution. How many times did you test it?
If the difference is one second (which is the resolution of time), and the additional couting by itself takes less than a second, it is entirely possible that in one case you started measuring as the second was just about to end and in the second case when the second had just begun. Or some other process may have kicked in and your program had to share time with it.
Yes I am sure I did not even touch my mouse during the running. I tested it more than 5 times.
1. Post an actual program which shows this effect, not something full of mystery . . .
2. State your OS and compiler (and versions)
In my experience std::cout makes programs really really slow. I often use std::cout for debugging purposes (not sure how to use the debugger). In the program I am currently working on it increased the running time from a few seconds to about 5 min.
If you tried to display your text over a network, chances are it would be even slower. I/O tends to be slow relative to say, arithmetic calculations, but if you need to do it, you need to do it.
Well 110*110 = 12100 basic operations (I'm assuming the inner loop doesn't do much though), which is hardly much for a modern computer. Try doing at least 5 million basic operations and the std::cout version would most likely be slower. Also std::cout is may be slow because by default it has synchronization with stdio functions (like printf()), you can disable this with a ios_base::sync_with_stdio(false) which should speed things up a notch.
I am not trying to conceal anything, but simply posting the content of the loop would just distract the attention from the main problem which is the shorter time when I use "cout lines" comparing to that when I comment the line out.
OS:Windows XP, Compiler Visual Studio 2005.
change it from 110 to 10000 and test again, you'll notice the difference.
... in which case no-one else can reproduce the behaviour. It's kind of hard to explain something you have never seen.Quote:
I am not trying to conceal anything, but simply posting the content of the loop would just distract the attention from the main problem which is the shorter time when I use "cout lines" comparing to that when I comment the line out.
In any case, don't use time() to measure program performance. It is meant for getting the day of the year, and the time of the day, but not for measuring the super-fast processes. It's like timing a 100 m race by looking at the second hand of your wristwatch.
Then, What function should I use to test this loop?
Or in general What functions should I use to measure performance of a program?
It would be very tedious to reproduce the behaviour because inside the loop I use some methods from open source and that I developed myself so lot of time woudl be gone just to collect all necesaary libraries. Again, whatever I use in the loop does not influence output stream. I am just perplexed with this outcome.Quote:
Originally Posted by anon
Use clock to measure performance.