Determining PHP script execution time

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Today I needed to quickly determine how long a script was taking to execute. Whilst a dedicated class could offer a lot more (including milestones) I needed something to do a quick ‘sanity check’ on a script. Heres how I did it:

function determinetime_float()
{
list($utime, $time) = explode(” “, microtime());
return ((float)$utime + (float)$time);
}

$script_start = determinetime_float();

Put the above at the top of your page, and put the below at the bottom of your page:

$script_end = determinetime_float();
echo “PHP script executed in “.bcsub($script_end, $script_start, 4).” seconds.”;

So, – whats happening?
PHP’s microtime() function gives the current timestamp in microseconds (we need this level of precision for script execution time). However microtime() returns a value like 796374521.15534500, when what we really want is 0.15534500 796374521 (The 0 is removed from the decimal section and added on to the integer). We use the above function to take care of this.

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