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Measuring Performance in PHP

Posted on , updated on by SteamDesk

Recently I had to rewrite a lengthy PHP script to synchronise a batch of products in a database with a Magento store. The key goal was to improve performance (as well as reliability, but that’s a story for another post) so I needed a simple way to measure not just the speed of the script but the speed of the individual functions of the import process.

After a quick hunt around for something suitable, and being bombarded with nothing but adverts and forced registrations, I decided to spend a few minutes knocking up the following script to fit exactly my requirements. Hopefully this is useful for someone else, feel free to borrow/steal/hack as you see fit!

<?
class Timing
{
	private $Start = 0;
	private $End = 0;

	private $Checkpoints = array();
	private $CheckpointMarker = 0;

	function Timing()
	{
		$this->StartTimer();
	}
	function GetTime()
	{
		return microtime(true);
	}

	function StartTimer()
	{
		$this->Start = $this->GetTime();
	}
	function StopTimer()
	{
		$this->End = $this->GetTime();
	}

	/* resets the marker for checkpoint timing */
	function StartCheckpoint()
	{
		$this->CheckpointMarker = $this->GetTime();
	}
	/* commits a checkpoint to the array, using the marker to work out the elapsed time */
	function AddCheckpoint($name)
	{
		$this->Checkpoints[] = array('name'=>$name,'since_last'=>$this->GetCheckpointElapsed(),'elapsed'=>$this->GetElapsed());
	}
	function GetCheckpointElapsed()
	{
		return ($this->GetTime() - $this->CheckpointMarker);
	}

	function GetElapsed()
	{
		return ($this->GetTime() - $this->Start);
	}

	/* returns an HTML table with the start/end times, and any checkpoints */
	function GetCheckpointsText($echo=true)
	{
		$this->StopTimer();

		$retStr = '<table style="font-size:11px; line-height:13px; border:1px solid #4d4d4d;">';
		$retStr .= '<tr><th style="text-align:left;">Checkpoint</th><th style="text-align:left;">Processing Time</th><th style="text-align:left;">Total Elapsed</th></tr>';

		$retStr .= '<tr><td>Started script</td><td>-</td><td>0</td></tr>';

		foreach($this->Checkpoints as $_checkpoint)
		{
			$retStr .= '<tr><td>'.$_checkpoint['name'].'</td><td>'.$_checkpoint['since_last'].'</td><td>'.$_checkpoint['elapsed'].'</td></tr>';
		}

		$retStr .= '<tr><td>Ended script</td><td>-</td><td>'.$this->GetElapsed().'</td></tr>';

		$retStr .= '</table>';

		if($echo)
			echo $retStr;
		else
			return $retStr;
	}
}

As you can see, it’s basic but does the job and doesn’t leave the original code cluttered with debugging lines.

So how do we use it? Easy! Take a look at the example below and all your questions should be answered.

StartCheckpoint();

SomeDifficultTask();

$Timing->AddCheckpoint('Running the SomeDifficultTask function');

// when we're done we can print out the
// timing table or retrieve it as a string
// if required
$Timing->GetCheckpointsText();

And with that little bit of code you’ll be left with something like the following. I’ve added a few more checkpoints to show this off, but it will work with 0-1000 checkpoints, as you like. Obviously there is some overhead from using this script, but that would really only matter in the most extreme circumstances.

TimingClassExample