5 ways to measure running time of R code

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5 ways to measure running time of R code

A reviewer asked me to report detailed running times for all (so many :scream:) performed computations in one of my papers, and so I spent a Saturday morning figuring out my favorite way to benchmark R code. This is a quick summary of the options I found to be available.

A quick online search revealed at least three R packages for benchmarking R code (rbenchmark, microbenchmark, and tictoc). Additionally, base R provides at least two methods to measure the running time of R code (Sys.time and system.time). In the following I briefly go through the syntax of using each of the five option, and present my conclusions at the end.

1. Using Sys.time

The run time of a chunk of code can be measured by taking the difference between the time at the start and at the end of the code chunk. Simple yet flexible :sunglasses:.

sleep_for_a_minute

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