Measure elapsed time in Swift

Here's a Swift function I wrote to measure Project Euler problems in Swift

As of Swift 3, there is now a version of Grand Central Dispatch that is "swiftified". So the correct answer is probably to use the DispatchTime API.

My function would look something like:

// Swift 3
func evaluateProblem(problemNumber: Int, problemBlock: () -> Int) -> Answer
{
    print("Evaluating problem \(problemNumber)")

    let start = DispatchTime.now() // <<<<<<<<<< Start time
    let myGuess = problemBlock()
    let end = DispatchTime.now()   // <<<<<<<<<<   end time

    let theAnswer = self.checkAnswer(answerNum: "\(problemNumber)", guess: myGuess)

    let nanoTime = end.uptimeNanoseconds - start.uptimeNanoseconds // <<<<< Difference in nano seconds (UInt64)
    let timeInterval = Double(nanoTime) / 1_000_000_000 // Technically could overflow for long running tests

    print("Time to evaluate problem \(problemNumber): \(timeInterval) seconds")
    return theAnswer
}

Old answer

For Swift 1 and 2, my function uses NSDate:

// Swift 1
func evaluateProblem(problemNumber: Int, problemBlock: () -> Int) -> Answer
{
    println("Evaluating problem \(problemNumber)")

    let start = NSDate() // <<<<<<<<<< Start time
    let myGuess = problemBlock()
    let end = NSDate()   // <<<<<<<<<<   end time

    let theAnswer = self.checkAnswer(answerNum: "\(problemNumber)", guess: myGuess)

    let timeInterval: Double = end.timeIntervalSinceDate(start) // <<<<< Difference in seconds (double)

    println("Time to evaluate problem \(problemNumber): \(timeInterval) seconds")
    return theAnswer
}

_{Note that using NSdate for timing functions is discouraged: "The system time may decrease due to synchronization with external time references or due to an explicit user change of the clock.".}

This is a handy timer class based on CoreFoundations CFAbsoluteTime:

import CoreFoundation

class ParkBenchTimer {

    let startTime:CFAbsoluteTime
    var endTime:CFAbsoluteTime?

    init() {
        startTime = CFAbsoluteTimeGetCurrent()
    }

    func stop() -> CFAbsoluteTime {
        endTime = CFAbsoluteTimeGetCurrent()

        return duration!
    }

    var duration:CFAbsoluteTime? {
        if let endTime = endTime {
            return endTime - startTime
        } else {
            return nil
        }
    }
}

You can use it like this:

let timer = ParkBenchTimer()

// ... a long runnig task ...

println("The task took \(timer.stop()) seconds.")

Use clock, ProcessInfo.systemUptime, or DispatchTime for simple start-up time.

There are, as far as I know, at least ten ways to measure elapsed time:

Monotonic Clock based:

1. ProcessInfo.systemUptime.
2. mach_absolute_time with mach_timebase_info as mentioned in this answer.
3. clock() in POSIX standard.
4. times() in POSIX standard. (Too complicated since we need to consider user-time v.s. system-time, and child processes are involved.)
5. DispatchTime (a wrapper around Mach time API) as mentioned by JeremyP in accepted answer.
6. CACurrentMediaTime().

Wall Clock based:

(never use those for metrics: see below why)

7. NSDate/Date as mentioned by others.
8. CFAbsoluteTime as mentioned by others.
9. DispatchWallTime.
10. gettimeofday() in POSIX standard.

Option 1, 2 and 3 are elaborated below.

Option 1: Process Info API in Foundation

do {
    let info = ProcessInfo.processInfo
    let begin = info.systemUptime
    // do something
    let diff = (info.systemUptime - begin)
}

where diff:NSTimeInterval is the elapsed time by seconds.

Option 2: Mach C API

do {
    var info = mach_timebase_info(numer: 0, denom: 0)
    mach_timebase_info(&info)
    let begin = mach_absolute_time()
    // do something
    let diff = Double(mach_absolute_time() - begin) * Double(info.numer) / Double(info.denom)
}

where diff:Double is the elapsed time by nano-seconds.

Option 3: POSIX clock API

do {
    let begin = clock()
    // do something
    let diff = Double(clock() - begin) / Double(CLOCKS_PER_SEC)
}

where diff:Double is the elapsed time by seconds.

Why Not Wall-Clock Time for Elapsed Time?

In documentation of CFAbsoluteTimeGetCurrent:

Repeated calls to this function do not guarantee monotonically increasing results.

Reason is similar to currentTimeMillis vs nanoTime in Java:

You can't use the one for the other purpose. The reason is that no computer's clock is perfect; it always drifts and occasionally needs to be corrected. This correction might either happen manually, or in the case of most machines, there's a process that runs and continually issues small corrections to the system clock ("wall clock"). These tend to happen often. Another such correction happens whenever there is a leap second.

Here CFAbsoluteTime provides wall clock time instead of start-up time. NSDate is wall clock time as well.