Automatically measuring command execution times

big_manel · 04-08-2007, 08:15 PM

Hi,

I have been playing around with the bash prompt, and thought of a neat feature to implement: an automatic display of the execution time of the last command.
I tried to use PROMPT_COMMAND but anything defined by this variable will only be ran upon the program termination, whereas I need something that clocks the beginning and end of the program to measure the total execution time.

What other options do you suggest?

Thanks all!

cgjones · 04-08-2007, 08:21 PM

There is the GNU time command.

big_manel · 04-08-2007, 08:27 PM

Yes, I know about it,

But how can I make it so it it automatically ran along each command? I usually only remember to use it after the command ended.

Thanks!

cgjones · 04-08-2007, 08:34 PM

You could create an alias in your ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_aliases file.

big_manel · 04-08-2007, 08:39 PM

That had occurred to me, but what exactly do I alias?

Can I alias something with a regexp? For example:

alias (.*)="time $1"

Thanks once again!

cgjones · 04-08-2007, 08:52 PM

I don't think you can do that with an alias, but you might be able to use a shell function. I don't have much experience in that department though.