What is the Python equivalent of Matlab's tic and toc functions?

Apart from timeit which ThiefMaster mentioned, a simple way to do it is just (after importing time):

t = time.time()
# do stuff
elapsed = time.time() - t

I have a helper class I like to use:

class Timer(object):
    def __init__(self, name=None):
        self.name = name

    def __enter__(self):
        self.tstart = time.time()

    def __exit__(self, type, value, traceback):
        if self.name:
            print('[%s]' % self.name,)
        print('Elapsed: %s' % (time.time() - self.tstart))

It can be used as a context manager:

with Timer('foo_stuff'):
   # do some foo
   # do some stuff

Sometimes I find this technique more convenient than timeit - it all depends on what you want to measure.

I had the same question when I migrated to python from Matlab. With the help of this thread I was able to construct an exact analog of the Matlab tic() and toc() functions. Simply insert the following code at the top of your script.

import time

def TicTocGenerator():
    # Generator that returns time differences
    ti = 0           # initial time
    tf = time.time() # final time
    while True:
        ti = tf
        tf = time.time()
        yield tf-ti # returns the time difference

TicToc = TicTocGenerator() # create an instance of the TicTocGen generator

# This will be the main function through which we define both tic() and toc()
def toc(tempBool=True):
    # Prints the time difference yielded by generator instance TicToc
    tempTimeInterval = next(TicToc)
    if tempBool:
        print( "Elapsed time: %f seconds.\n" %tempTimeInterval )

def tic():
    # Records a time in TicToc, marks the beginning of a time interval
    toc(False)

That's it! Now we are ready to fully use tic() and toc() just as in Matlab. For example

tic()

time.sleep(5)

toc() # returns "Elapsed time: 5.00 seconds."

Actually, this is more versatile than the built-in Matlab functions. Here, you could create another instance of the TicTocGenerator to keep track of multiple operations, or just to time things differently. For instance, while timing a script, we can now time each piece of the script seperately, as well as the entire script. (I will provide a concrete example)

TicToc2 = TicTocGenerator() # create another instance of the TicTocGen generator

def toc2(tempBool=True):
    # Prints the time difference yielded by generator instance TicToc2
    tempTimeInterval = next(TicToc2)
    if tempBool:
    print( "Elapsed time 2: %f seconds.\n" %tempTimeInterval )

def tic2():
    # Records a time in TicToc2, marks the beginning of a time interval
    toc2(False)

Now you should be able to time two separate things: In the following example, we time the total script and parts of a script separately.

tic()

time.sleep(5)

tic2()

time.sleep(3)

toc2() # returns "Elapsed time 2: 5.00 seconds."

toc() # returns "Elapsed time: 8.00 seconds."

Actually, you do not even need to use tic() each time. If you have a series of commands that you want to time, then you can write

tic()

time.sleep(1)

toc() # returns "Elapsed time: 1.00 seconds."

time.sleep(2)

toc() # returns "Elapsed time: 2.00 seconds."

time.sleep(3)

toc() # returns "Elapsed time: 3.00 seconds."

# and so on...

I hope that this is helpful.

The absolute best analog of tic and toc would be to simply define them in python.

def tic():
    #Homemade version of matlab tic and toc functions
    import time
    global startTime_for_tictoc
    startTime_for_tictoc = time.time()

def toc():
    import time
    if 'startTime_for_tictoc' in globals():
        print "Elapsed time is " + str(time.time() - startTime_for_tictoc) + " seconds."
    else:
        print "Toc: start time not set"

Then you can use them as:

tic()
# do stuff
toc()