-----------------------------------

Geminias

Sat Aug 11, 2007 8:50 pm


Testing Efficiency?

-----------------------------------

What's the best way to compare efficiencies of different algorithms?  I tried the "time" command which I believe is the GNU/time(1) command built into bash but the results are staggered for multiple runs of the same program...  Also I don't know how to adjust the precision and frankly the documentation both in man and google sucks.


-----------------------------------

Ultrahex

Sat Aug 11, 2007 9:11 pm


Re: Testing Efficiency?

-----------------------------------

Testing multiple cases using the programming languages timer, or computer internal timer/clock cycles for the program. Also checking how many times it iterates through in the program is another way to check efficient such as big O notation.


-----------------------------------

Geminias

Sun Aug 12, 2007 6:23 am


RE:Testing Efficiency?

-----------------------------------

yeah cool but how?  (what program? whats the command?)


-----------------------------------

PaulButler

Sun Aug 12, 2007 6:16 pm


RE:Testing Efficiency?

-----------------------------------

I think Ultrahex is talking about programming the timer into the program, something like this:


// pseudocode
c = current time;
for (i = 0; i < 1000; i++)
     function_you_want_to_test(arguments, for, this_function);
avgtime = (current time - c) / 1000;