QElapsedTimer Class | Qt Core 5.15.19 (original) (raw)

The QElapsedTimer class provides a fast way to calculate elapsed times. More...

This class was introduced in Qt 4.7.

• List of all members, including inherited members

Note: All functions in this class are reentrant.

Public Types

Detailed Description

The QElapsedTimer class is usually used to quickly calculate how much time has elapsed between two events. Its API is similar to that of QTime, so code that was using that can be ported quickly to the new class.

However, unlike QTime, QElapsedTimer tries to use monotonic clocks if possible. This means it's not possible to convert QElapsedTimer objects to a human-readable time.

The typical use-case for the class is to determine how much time was spent in a slow operation. The simplest example of such a case is for debugging purposes, as in the following example:

QElapsedTimer timer;
timer.start();

slowOperation1();

[qDebug](qtglobal.html#qDebug)() << "The slow operation took" << timer.elapsed() << "milliseconds";

In this example, the timer is started by a call to start() and the elapsed time is calculated by the elapsed() function.

The time elapsed can also be used to recalculate the time available for another operation, after the first one is complete. This is useful when the execution must complete within a certain time period, but several steps are needed. The waitFor-type functions in QIODevice and its subclasses are good examples of such need. In that case, the code could be as follows:

void executeSlowOperations(int timeout) { QElapsedTimer timer; timer.start(); slowOperation1();

int remainingTime = timeout - timer.elapsed();
if (remainingTime > 0)
    slowOperation2(remainingTime);

}

Another use-case is to execute a certain operation for a specific timeslice. For this, QElapsedTimer provides the hasExpired() convenience function, which can be used to determine if a certain number of milliseconds has already elapsed:

void executeOperationsForTime(int ms) { QElapsedTimer timer; timer.start();

while (!timer.hasExpired(ms))
    slowOperation1();

}

It is often more convenient to use QDeadlineTimer in this case, which counts towards a timeout in the future instead of tracking elapsed time.

Reference Clocks

QElapsedTimer will use the platform's monotonic reference clock in all platforms that support it (see QElapsedTimer::isMonotonic()). This has the added benefit that QElapsedTimer is immune to time adjustments, such as the user correcting the time. Also unlike QTime, QElapsedTimer is immune to changes in the timezone settings, such as daylight-saving periods.

On the other hand, this means QElapsedTimer values can only be compared with other values that use the same reference. This is especially true if the time since the reference is extracted from the QElapsedTimer object (QElapsedTimer::msecsSinceReference()) and serialised. These values should never be exchanged across the network or saved to disk, since there's no telling whether the computer node receiving the data is the same as the one originating it or if it has rebooted since.

It is, however, possible to exchange the value with other processes running on the same machine, provided that they also use the same reference clock. QElapsedTimer will always use the same clock, so it's safe to compare with the value coming from another process in the same machine. If comparing to values produced by other APIs, you should check that the clock used is the same as QElapsedTimer (see QElapsedTimer::clockType()).

See also QTime, QTimer, and QDeadlineTimer.

Member Type Documentation

enum QElapsedTimer::ClockType

This enum contains the different clock types that QElapsedTimer may use.

QElapsedTimer will always use the same clock type in a particular machine, so this value will not change during the lifetime of a program. It is provided so that QElapsedTimer can be used with other non-Qt implementations, to guarantee that the same reference clock is being used.

SystemTime

The system time clock is purely the real time, expressed in milliseconds since Jan 1, 1970 at 0:00 UTC. It's equivalent to the value returned by the C and POSIX time function, with the milliseconds added. This clock type is currently only used on Unix systems that do not support monotonic clocks (see below).

This is the only non-monotonic clock that QElapsedTimer may use.

MonotonicClock

This is the system's monotonic clock, expressed in milliseconds since an arbitrary point in the past. This clock type is used on Unix systems which support POSIX monotonic clocks (_POSIX_MONOTONIC_CLOCK).

MachAbsoluteTime

This clock type is based on the absolute time presented by Mach kernels, such as that found on macOS. This clock type is presented separately from MonotonicClock since macOS and iOS are also Unix systems and may support a POSIX monotonic clock with values differing from the Mach absolute time.

This clock is monotonic.

PerformanceCounter

This clock uses the Windows functions QueryPerformanceCounter and QueryPerformanceFrequency to access the system's performance counter.

This clock is monotonic.

See also clockType() and isMonotonic().

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