# Measuring the Performance of your Code using a Timer

**URL:** https://forum.kirupa.com/t/measuring-the-performance-of-your-code-using-a-timer/318362
**Category:** open source
**Created:** [January 18, 2011, 5:34am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/measuring-the-performance-of-your-code-using-a-timer/318362 "2011-01-18T05:34:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![kirupa](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/kirupa/32/11616_2.png) [@kirupa](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/kirupa)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2011, 5:34am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/measuring-the-performance-of-your-code-using-a-timer/318362/1 "2011-01-18T05:34:57Z")

</div>

Hi everyone,  
I had to fiddle with this recently to see which approach for doing squares was faster - Math.pow or a simple x\*x. Hopefully the approach for using a timer to measure the time it takes to perform a computation proves helpful for you in other cases as well:

```auto

package 
{

	import flash.display.MovieClip;
	import flash.utils.getTimer;

	public class MainDocument extends MovieClip
	{
		public function MainDocument()
		{
			// constructor code

			var startingTime:Number = getTimer();

			for (var i:Number = 0; i < 10000; i++)
			{
				var randomA:Number = Math.random() * 1000;
				var randomB:Number = Math.random() * 1000;
				var randomC:Number = Math.random() * 1000;
				var randomD:Number = Math.random() * 1000;
				
				//
				// Toggle the commenting on the lines below to see which performs faster
				//
				var distance:Number = GetDistanceSquare(randomA,randomB,randomC,randomD);
				//var distance:Number = GetDistanceSquare(randomA,randomB,randomC,randomD);
			}
			
			var endingTime:Number = getTimer();
			
			trace("Starting time: " + startingTime + ", ending time: " + endingTime);
			trace(endingTime - startingTime);
		}

		private function GetDistancePow(xA:Number, yA:Number, xB:Number, yB:Number):Number
		{
			return Math.sqrt(Math.pow(xA - xB,2) + Math.pow(yA - yB,2));
		}

		private function GetDistanceSquare(xA:Number, yA:Number, xB:Number, yB:Number):Number
		{
			var xDiff:Number = xA - xB;
			var yDiff:Number = yA - yB;

			return Math.sqrt(xDiff * xDiff + yDiff * yDiff);
		}
	}

}

```

Cheers,  
Kirupa :write: