Home Original page

[Python-Dev] PEP 564: Add new time functions with nanosecond resolution

Victor Stinner victor.stinner at gmail.com
Tue Oct 17 18:05:24 EDT 2017 
Antoine Pitrou:
> Why not ``time.process_time_ns()``?

I measured the minimum delta between two clock reads, ignoring zeros.
I tested time.process_time(), os.times(), resource.getrusage(), and
their nanosecond variants (with my WIP implementation of the PEP 564).

Linux:

* process_time_ns(): 1 ns
* process_time(): 2 ns
* resource.getrusage(): 1 us
   ru_usage structure uses timeval, so it makes sense
* clock(): 1 us
   CLOCKS_PER_SECOND = 1,000,000 => res = 1 us
* times_ns().elapsed, times().elapsed: 10 ms
   os.sysconf("SC_CLK_TCK") == HZ = 100 => res = 10 ms
* times_ns().user, times().user: 10 ms
   os.sysconf("SC_CLK_TCK") == HZ = 100 => res = 10 ms

Windows:

* process_time(), process_time_ns(): 15.6 ms
* os.times().user, os.times_ns().user: 15.6 ms

Note: I didn't test os.wait3() and os.wait4(), but they also use the
ru_usage structure and so probably also have a resolution of 1 us.

It looks like *currently*, only time.process_time() has a resolution
in nanoseconds (smaller than 1 us). I propose to only add
time.process_time_ns(), as you proposed.

We might add nanosecond variant for the other functions once operating
systems will add new functions with better resolution.

Victor
More information about the Python-Dev mailing list