[Savannah-users] Octave profile timing

[Anne Ikonen]

Hi,

 

I was looking for MATLAB timing profile from OCTAVE, but didn't find.

 

Then I made a plan to measure OCTAVE timings. Several alternatives were found:

 

1) Inserting

 

     t(linenum, callcounter) = clock();

 

    timelines in the code. This works, but isn't automatic, so big files cause lots of additional work done.

 

2) Inserting

 

     t(linenum, callcounter) = clock();

 

    timelines in the code AUTOMATICALLY before actually calling the scripts or functions.

 

    Then you get:

 

 

       myfunction.m  ----> modified myfunction.m including timelines.

 

    This also works, but needs a facility to maintain timelines in m-files. An easy automatic code looks for suitable lines in the m-file and inserts a timeline everywhere.

 

    However, this modifies m-files, which isn't very good thing in the long run.

 

3) Could simulate OCTAVE engine and call eval for every octave code fraction with timing measurement:

 

     octaveline   ---->       eval ( 'timestart; octaveline ; timestop;')

 

    this also works, but simulation can become rather complicated trying to do all the same things as octave engine does.

 

4) Could dispatch octave engine "eval"-functionality to include timing start and stop around executed code.

    How this can be done? eval is a builtin function in octave. And timing results need to be collected also.

 

5) Can find out average times for every octave action during eval and report results as estimations of algorithm times.

    This is not exact, but gives a good view of timings in an algorithm.

    This works, but isn't automatic, so big files cause lots of additional work done. And exceptional timings are not found this way.

 

6) Could try to use external facilities to measure timing points to octave engine proceedings. Works and shows code location timings, but since code location contents are not exactly known and can ever vary, isn't the best possible way to measure octave timings.

 

 

Is MATLAB profile on/off available for octave somewhere outside octave pages? It wasn't mentioned in octave manuals.

 

Sincerely

 

Jari-Pekka Ikonen

 

email: address@hidden