What is the best way to measure execution time of a function? [duplicate]

Obviously I can do and DateTime.Now.After - DateTime.Now.Before but there must be something more sophisticated.

Any tips appreciated.


System.Environment.TickCount and the System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch class are two that work well for finer resolution and straightforward usage.

See Also:

  • Is DateTime.Now the best way to measure a function’s performance?
  • High resolution timer in .NET
  • Environment.TickCount vs DateTime.Now
  • What’s the best way to benchmark programs in Windows?

I would definitely advise you to have a look at System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch

And when I looked around for more about Stopwatch I found this site;

Beware of the stopwatch

There mentioned another possibility

Process.TotalProcessorTime


Use a Profiler

Your approach will work nevertheless, but if you are looking for more sophisticated approaches. I'd suggest using a C# Profiler.

The advantages they have is:

  • You can even get a statement level breakup
  • No changes required in your codebase
  • Instrumentions generally have very less overhead, hence very accurate results can be obtained.

There are many available open-source as well.