Re: [Tutor] measuring the start up time of an event-driven program
Albert-Jan Roskam, 24.07.2012 11:18:
I would like to test how long it takes for two versions of the same
program to start up and be ready to receive commands. The program is
SPSS version-very-old vs. SPSS version-latest.
Normally I'd just fire the program up in a subprocess and measure the
time before and after finishing. But this kind of program is never
finished. It's looping until infinity and waiting for events/commands. I
tried wrapping it in a while True loop, and break out of the loop and
terminate the program (using ctypes) if the retcode of the process is
equal to zero. But that doesn't work.
Is it really looping or is it just sitting and waiting for input? You might
be able to provide some input that makes it terminate.
Stefan
=== Good idea. And thanks everybody for replying. I solved it by using
SendKeys-ctypes-0.2.
I couldn't use pywin32 -- no rights to install this :-((
Here's a fragment (it won't work on an english locale, I think. Replace 'u'
with 'r' (for Run...).
start = time.clock()
if windows_version == Windows 2000 and spss_version == 14:
SendKeys.SendKeys({LWIN}
{PAUSE 0.25}
u
%s{ENTER}
{PAUSE %2.1f}
%%{TAB 2}
%%{F4} % (spss_path, PAUSE), with_spaces=True)
elif windows_version == Windows 7:
SendKeys.SendKeys({LWIN}
{PAUSE 0.25}
%s{ENTER}
{PAUSE %2.1f}
%%{TAB}
%%{F4} % (spss_path, PAUSE), with_spaces=True)
end = time.clock()
duration = (end - start)
From: Stefan Behnel stefan...@behnel.de
To: tutor@python.org
Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2012 2:29 PM
Subject: Re: [Tutor] measuring the start up time of an event-driven program
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Re: [Tutor] measuring the start up time of an event-driven program
On Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 02:18:43AM -0700, Albert-Jan Roskam wrote: Hi, I would like to test how long it takes for two versions of the same program to start up and be ready to receive commands. The program is SPSS version-very-old vs. SPSS version-latest. I don't think this is a Python question. I think this is a what tools does my operating system provide for fine testing of process startup time? question. I'm not an expert, but I suspect that the answer will be, none. Which OS are you using? If the SPSS app has the ability to run commands specified from a script, and then automatically exit, perhaps you can approximate start-up time as start-up, run an empty script, and exit time, assuming that running the script and exiting will be negligible. Or, if the app is slow enough (I'm looking at you Chrome, fastest way to browse the web my arse) perhaps you could just time it with a stop-watch. I want to know how long the user on average needs to wait before he can start doing analyses in SPSS. If it takes way much longer in the new version, the user might be more inclined not to close the program after use, which may lead to a lack of concurrent licenses. If you have to measure the difference to notice the difference, the average user won't notice the difference. -- Steven ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] measuring the start up time of an event-driven program
From: Steven D'Aprano st...@pearwood.info To: tutor@python.org Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2012 11:48 AM Subject: Re: [Tutor] measuring the start up time of an event-driven program On Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 02:18:43AM -0700, Albert-Jan Roskam wrote: Hi, I would like to test how long it takes for two versions of the same program to start up and be ready to receive commands. The program is SPSS version-very-old vs. SPSS version-latest. I don't think this is a Python question. I think this is a what tools does my operating system provide for fine testing of process startup time? question. I'm not an expert, but I suspect that the answer will be, none. Which OS are you using? === I am using Windows 7, but I'd find it interesting to hear about Linux tools too (though I couldn't use them in this particular case). Would be cool if such a tool could differentiate between the various processes involved. In this case stats.exe (frontend) and spssengine.exe (backend). If the SPSS app has the ability to run commands specified from a script, and then automatically exit, perhaps you can approximate start-up time as start-up, run an empty script, and exit time, assuming that running the script and exiting will be negligible. === Well, I actually do that too. But the full-fledged app has a GUI programmed in (I think) C++ (old version) or Java (new version). The latter is markedly slower. People work with the GUI based spss all the time. Only when their code is final, people *might* use the scripting facility. Or, if the app is slow enough (I'm looking at you Chrome, fastest way to browse the web my arse) perhaps you could just time it with a stop-watch. === ;-))) Yeah, good idea (I mean the stop-watch, not Chrome --I don't like Google's information obesity). I want to know how long the user on average needs to wait before he can start doing analyses in SPSS. If it takes way much longer in the new version, the user might be more inclined not to close the program after use, which may lead to a lack of concurrent licenses. If you have to measure the difference to notice the difference, the average user won't notice the difference. === Good point. But it is noticeable, and now I'd like to quantify that. Something like: ceteris paribus it takes 2.2 times longer to start up the new version, as compared with the old version == And of course: Thanks! -- Steven ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] measuring the start up time of an event-driven program
On 24 July 2012 11:18, Albert-Jan Roskam fo...@yahoo.com wrote: I would like to test how long it takes for two versions of the same program to start up and be ready to receive commands. The program is SPSS version-very-old vs. SPSS version-latest. Normally I'd just fire the program up in a subprocess and measure the time before and after finishing. But this kind of program is never finished. It's looping until infinity and waiting for events/commands. I tried wrapping it in a while True loop, and break out of the loop and terminate the program (using ctypes) if the retcode of the process is equal to zero. But that doesn't work. So, the question is, what defines your end point for timing. I'd say, you could either check if the program *looks* like being ready ( http://sikuli.org/ could help here) or if it doesn't use up cpu anymore. Both ways, I'd except a fair amount of overhead and for the cpu-usage way bogus results also. Both problems could perhaps be addressed by enough timing runs. cu, Michael ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] measuring the start up time of an event-driven program
Albert-Jan Roskam, 24.07.2012 11:18: I would like to test how long it takes for two versions of the same program to start up and be ready to receive commands. The program is SPSS version-very-old vs. SPSS version-latest. Normally I'd just fire the program up in a subprocess and measure the time before and after finishing. But this kind of program is never finished. It's looping until infinity and waiting for events/commands. I tried wrapping it in a while True loop, and break out of the loop and terminate the program (using ctypes) if the retcode of the process is equal to zero. But that doesn't work. Is it really looping or is it just sitting and waiting for input? You might be able to provide some input that makes it terminate. Stefan ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
