C# Stopwatch

last modified July 5, 2023

C# Stopwatch tutorial shows how to measure execution time in C# using Stopwatch class.

Stopwatch class provides a set of methods and properties that can be used to accurately measure elapsed time. Stopwatch is part of the System.Diagnostics namespace.

The usage of Stopwatch is straightforward. We start the stopwatch with Start and end it with Stop. The code to be measured is placed between these two methods. The elapsed time can be retrieved with Elapsed, ElapsedMilliseconds or ElapsedTicks properties.

C# Stopwatch - string concatenation

We measure string concatenation methods.

using System.Diagnostics;

var text = string.Empty;

var sw = new Stopwatch();
sw.Start();

for (int i=0; i < 100_000; i++)
{
    text += "abc";
}

var n = text.Length;
Console.WriteLine($"# of chars: {n}");

sw.Stop();
var elapsed = sw.ElapsedMilliseconds;

Console.WriteLine($"Concat elapsed: {elapsed} ms");

We concatenate a string 100,000 times. We measure efficiency of the + operator; the elapsed time is in milliseconds.

$ dotnet run
of chars: 300000
Concat elapsed: 6611 ms

In the second example, we use string interpolation.

using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Text;

var text = string.Empty;

var sw = new Stopwatch();
sw.Start();

for (int i=0; i < 100_000; i++)
{
    text = $"{text}abc";
}

var n = text.Length;
Console.WriteLine($"# of chars: {n}");

sw.Stop();
var elapsed = sw.ElapsedMilliseconds;

Console.WriteLine($"Interpolate elapsed: {elapsed} ms");

The $ special character identifies a string literal as an interpolated string.

$ dotnet run
of chars: 300000
Interpolate elapsed: 6576 ms

C# Stopwatch - sorting algorithm

There are several algorithms for sorting items. We are going to compare selection sort with bubble sort.

using System.Diagnostics;

var sw = new Stopwatch();
sw.Start();

DoSelectionSort(GetArray());

sw.Stop();

var elapsed = sw.ElapsedMilliseconds;

Console.WriteLine($"Selection sort: {elapsed} ms");

int[] GetArray()
{
    var rnd = new Random();

    var vals = new int[30_000];
    for (int i = 0; i < 30_000; i++)
    {

        vals[i] = rnd.Next(1, 100);
    }

    return vals;
}

void DoSelectionSort(int[] a)
{
    int len = a.Length;

    for (int i = 0; i < len - 1; i++)
    {

        int min_idx = i;

        for (int j = i + 1; j < len; j++)
        {
            if (a[j] < a[min_idx])
            {
                min_idx = j;
            }
        }

        int temp = a[min_idx];
        a[min_idx] = a[i];
        a[i] = temp;
    }
}

We create a array having 30,000 random values. The elements are sorted with the selection sort.

$ dotnet run
Selection sort: 1871 ms

In the second example, we measure the bubble sort.

using System.Diagnostics;

var sw = new Stopwatch();
sw.Start();

DoBubbleSort(GetArray());

sw.Stop();

var elapsed = sw.ElapsedMilliseconds;

Console.WriteLine($"Bubble sort: {elapsed} ms");

int[] GetArray()
{
    var rnd = new Random();

    var vals = new int[30_000];
    for (int i = 0; i < 30_000; i++)
    {

        vals[i] = rnd.Next(1, 100);
    }

    return vals;
}

void DoBubbleSort(int[] a)
{
    int len = a.Length;

    for (int i = 0; i < len - 1; i++)
    {
        for (int j = 0; j < len - i - 1; j++)
        {
            if (a[j] > a[j + 1])
            {
                int temp = a[j];
                a[j] = a[j + 1];
                a[j + 1] = temp;
            }
        }
    }
}

The bubble sort is a less efficient algorithm, so the it should take longer to sort the array with bubble sort.

$ dotnet run
Bubble sort: 4368 ms

Source

Stopwatch class - language reference

In this article we have measured execution time of C# programs with Stopwatch.

Author

My name is Jan Bodnar and I am a passionate programmer with many years of programming experience. I have been writing programming articles since 2007. So far, I have written over 1400 articles and 8 e-books. I have over eight years of experience in teaching programming.

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