question on timing results

[Remco Poelstra]

Globe Trotter wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> This is strictly not an FC question, but I would like to time two (mine and the
> naive) competing algorithms. My question is how do I do it accounting for CPU
> utilization. Unless I misunderstood the documentation, clock() provides the
> processor time and so the difference between clock() at the beginning of the
> call to an algorithm and the end would provide me with the CPU time elapsed.
> However, if for some reason the processor was running at 75% or whatever, my
> reported time would be affected, and hence there would not really be a fair
> comparison. Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions as to how I may settle this
> issue?

The bash commando 'time' gives real, user and system time of a command. 
see 'man time' for more information.
Perhaps that could be usefull.

Remco