A Timer Measuring Real-Time (Real_timer)

Definition

A timer t of type Real_timer is an object with a state. It is either running or it is stopped. The state is controlled with t.start() and t.stop() . The timer counts the time elapsed since its creation or last reset. It counts only the time where it is in the running state. The time information is given in seconds. The timer counts also the number of intervals it was running, i.e. it counts the number of calls of the start() member function since the last reset. If the reset occures while the timer is running it counts as the first interval.

#include <CGAL/Real_timer.h>

Creation

Real_timer t;
	state is stopped.

Operations

void	t.start ()	Precondition: state is stopped.
void	t.stop ()	Precondition: state is running.
void	t.reset ()	reset timer to zero. The state is unaffected.
bool	t.is_running ()	true if the current state is running.
double	t.time ()	real time in seconds.
int	t.intervals ()	number of start/stop-intervals since the last reset.
double	t.precision ()	smallest possible time step in seconds; returns -1 if not available.
double	t.max ()	maximal representable time in seconds.

Implementation

The timer class is based in the C function gettimeofday(...) on UNIX systems and _ftime(...) on MS Visual C++.