Counters and flattening

Pass counter= to time the iterations of a loop as separate sections. The section is recorded as name[counter]:

import time

from execution_timer import TimerContext, get_execution_timings

with TimerContext("solve"):
    for i in range(3):
        with TimerContext("step", counter=i):
            time.sleep(0.01 * (i + 1))

Merged or separate

Every function that reads timings takes a flatten argument. With the default, flatten=True, counter variants are merged back into one section and their times added up. With flatten=False, each iteration stays separate:

merged = get_execution_timings()  # flatten=True
separate = get_execution_timings(flatten=False)

assert list(merged) == [("solve",), ("solve", "step")]
assert list(separate) == [("solve",), ("solve", "step[0]"), ("solve", "step[1]"), ("solve", "step[2]")]

The same applies to the text report:

from execution_timer import get_execution_times_report

print(get_execution_times_report(flatten=False))

Total time: 67.003 ms.

solve: 67.003 ms (100.00%)
..  step[0]: 12.542 ms (18.72%)
..  step[1]: 23.851 ms (35.60%)
..  step[2]: 30.498 ms (45.52%)

Use the separate view to find a slow iteration, and the merged view to see the loop’s share of the whole run.

What flattening merges

Flattening removes a final integer suffix in brackets from every name in the path, including negative counters such as step[-1]. Other bracketed names are kept: array[index] and cache[] are left alone.

Flattening can’t tell a counter from a name you wrote yourself, so sections you named "row[1]" and "row[2]" are merged into row too. Use flatten=False to keep them apart, or pick names without a trailing [number].

If merged variants have different categories, the merged section takes the category of the most recently entered one. Category totals are computed before merging, so they stay correct either way.

Counters and memory

Each counter value is a separate section until you call clear_execution_timings(). A long-running process that times an unbounded loop with counter= keeps adding entries. Either clear the timings periodically (see Long-running processes) or drop counter= so the iterations accumulate into one section.