[Python-Dev] Drop the new time.wallclock() function? (original) (raw)

Jeffrey Yasskin jyasskin at gmail.com
Wed Mar 14 06:42:24 CET 2012

On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 5:03 PM, Michael Foord <fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk> wrote:

On 13 Mar 2012, at 16:57, Victor Stinner wrote:

Hi,

I added two functions to the time module in Python 3.3: wallclock() and monotonic(). I'm unable to explain the difference between these two functions, even if I wrote them :-) wallclock() is suppose to be more accurate than time() but has an unspecified starting point. monotonic() is similar except that it is monotonic: it cannot go backward. monotonic() may not be available or fail whereas wallclock() is available/work, but I think that the two functions are redundant. I prefer to keep only monotonic() because it is not affected by system clock update and should help to fix issues on NTP update in functions implementing a timeout. What do you think?

I am in the middle of adding a feature to unittest that involves timing of individual tests. I want the highest resolution cross platform measure of wallclock time - and time.wallclock() looked ideal. If monotonic may not exist or can fail why would that be better?

Isn't the highest resolution cross platform measure of "wallclock" time spelled "time.clock()"? Its docs say "this is the function to use for benchmarking Python or timing algorithms", and it would be a shame to add and teach a new function rather than improving clock()'s definition.

Jeffrey

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