Module:Timing/doc: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 11:33, 19 January 2016

Revision as of 11:34, 19 January 2016

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The purpose of this module is to provide a simple method to do timing analysis for [[w:en:performance tuning|performance tuning]] of Lua-functions, that is [[w:en:Profiling (computer programming)|profiling of functions]]. Usually measuring the duration of function calls is part of a larger effort to identify bottlenecks and problematic code. This is not a full-blown profiler, as it is not possible to do line-tracing (call-graph profiling) in the current set up. Its only purpose is to measure execution time (flat profiling), and to do this interactively from the debug console (ie. on a single function).

''As it is said several times in this text; the timing is not accurate and it should only be used as a coarse measure of the approximate run time and load of a function. Do not attempt to fine-tune a module to just fit into the maximum allowed time limitslot for a module, keep well below the limit!''

The timing analysis is called with an executable function, and optionally a count (size, default 100) of each test set and a number of such test sets (default 10). The total number of calls will be ''count × sets'' and gives the mean runtime for the function. The standard deviation is calculated from the number of ''sets'' and will only be a coarse estimate. If only run with a single set the standard deviation will go away, but even if it isn't measured the execution time will still vary.