A simple way to time a small bits of Python code

A simple way to time a small bits of Python code is by using the time module. Please look at the example below.

>>> from time import time, sleep
>>> def f(x):
    '''
    Does nothing. Sleep for x seconds.
    '''
    sleep(x)

>>> time1 = time(); f(5); print('Run in {0:f} seconds.'.format(time()-time1))
Run in 5.000000 seconds.

Code break down:

In the above example, we want to measure how long will the function f() run.

1. Import the time module.

   from time import time, sleep

2. Get the current time.

   time1 = time()

3. Run the function, get the current time, print the time elapsed.

   f(5)
   print('Run in {0:f} seconds.'.format(time()-time1))