inline_benchmarker 1.0.0⧉

About

InlineBenchmarker is an easy to use inline benchmarking system.
The goal of inline benchmarking is to help you find bottle-necks in your application, rather than to benchmark abstract units.
Therefor Dart's benchmark harness library would probably be better suited.
Inline benchmarks can be used in projects that are otherwise hard to benchmark (perhaps because they are too much of a spaghetti), or to monitor alghorithms on how they respond with production processes and data.

How To: Using The Benchmarker

Benchmarking Methods

void loginMethod()
{
  Benchmark loginBenchmark = Benchmarker.generate("loginBenchmark");
  
  // Perform login logic
  
  loginBenchmark.stop();
  Benchmarker.report();
}

Explanation of Code:

• loginBenchmark is the name of the benchmark
• Benchmarker.report(); will print out the results of the benchmark

Output:

[DEFAULT] loginBenchmark: Runtime: 1000 us

Explanation of Output:

• [DEFAULT] stands for the group the benchmark belongs to
• 1000 us is how long the benchmark took to run

µs is an abbreviation for microseconds.

Benchmarking Loops

void calculateMethod()
{
  Benchmark calculationBenchmark = Benchmarker.generate("calculationBenchmark", autoRun: false);
  
  for (int i = 0; i < 100 ; i++)
  {
    calculationBenchmark.start();   
    // Perform calculation logic
    calculationBenchmark.stop();
  }
  
  Benchmarker.report();
}

Explanation of Code:

• Setting autoRun to false will prevent the benchmark from running instantly.
• Benchmarks can be started manually using the start() method

Output:

[DEFAULT] calculationBenchmark:
› (1/100) Runtime: 10 us
› (2/100) Runtime: 10 us
› (3/100) Runtime: 10 us
...
› (100/100) Runtime: 10 us

Explanation of Output:

• (1/100) is which iteration was benchmarked

Using Group and Indentation Parameters

For more complex applications, which combine nested methods and loops, it might be useful to format the output text using the group and indentation parameters.

void calculateMethod()
{
  Benchmark calculateMethodBenchmark  = Benchmarker.generate("Calculation Benchmark", group: 'CALCULATION');
  Benchmark calculateLoopBenchmark    = Benchmarker.generate("Calculation Loop Benchmark", group: 'CALCULATION', indentation: 1, autoStart: false);
  
  for (int i = 0; i < 100 ; i++)
  {
    calculateLoopBenchmark.start();
    // Perform calculation logic
    calculateOtherStuffMethod();
    calculateLoopBenchmark.stop();
  }
  
  calculateMethodBenchmark.stop();
  Benchmarker.report(group: 'CALCULATION');
}

void calculateOtherStuffMethod()
{
  Benchmark calculateOtherStuffMethodBenchmark  = Benchmarker.generate("Calculate Other Stuff Benchmark", group: 'CALCULATION', indentation: 2);
  // Perform other calculation logic
  calculateOtherStuffMethodBenchmark.stop();
}

Explanation of Code:

• The group parameter will group benchmarks together in the output console.
• When no group is specified, a 'DEFAULT' group will be created
• The indentation parameter will indent the output with the number of tabs specified
• Benchmarker.report(group: 'CALCULATION'); will only report the benchmark specified by the group parameter

Output:

[CALCULATION] Calculation Benchmark: Runtime: 10000 us
  [CALCULATION] Calculation Loop Benchmark:
  › (1/100) Runtime: 10 us
    [CALCULATION] Calculate Other Stuff Benchmark: Runtime: 10 us
  › (2/100) Runtime: 10 us
    [CALCULATION] Calculate Other Stuff Benchmark: Runtime: 10 us
  › (3/100) Runtime: 10 us
    [CALCULATION] Calculate Other Stuff Benchmark: Runtime: 10 us
    ...
  › (100/100) Runtime: 10 us
    [CALCULATION] Calculate Other Stuff Benchmark: Runtime: 10 us

How To: Disabling Benchmarks

When you are running in production mode, you probably don't want the benchmarks running constantly. A better option would be to give your application the ability to enable/disable benchmarks (perhaps by passing a URL parameter, in the case of a web application).

Disabling benchmarks is very easy:

Benchmarker.disable();

Output:

Enable benchmarks to produce a report

Info

For more info about this project, contact:

• hans@dotdotcommadot.com