microtime

What is microtime?

The microtime package provides high-resolution time in microseconds, which is useful for performance measurement and benchmarking in Node.js applications.

What are microtime's main functionalities?

Get current time in microseconds

This feature allows you to get the current time in microseconds since the Unix epoch. It is useful for precise time measurements.

const microtime = require('microtime');
const currentTime = microtime.now();
console.log(currentTime);

Get current time as an array

This feature returns the current time as an array with two elements: seconds and microseconds. It provides a structured way to access high-resolution time.

const microtime = require('microtime');
const timeArray = microtime.nowStruct();
console.log(timeArray);

Get current time as a double

This feature returns the current time as a floating-point number representing seconds and fractions of a second. It is useful for calculations that require time in seconds.

const microtime = require('microtime');
const timeDouble = microtime.nowDouble();
console.log(timeDouble);

Other packages similar to microtime

performance-now

The performance-now package provides a high-resolution timer that returns the current time in milliseconds with sub-millisecond precision. It is similar to microtime but uses milliseconds instead of microseconds, which may be sufficient for many applications.

hrtime

The hrtime package is a Node.js built-in function that provides high-resolution real-time in nanoseconds. It is more precise than microtime and is suitable for applications requiring even finer time measurements.

README

node-microtime

Date.now() will only give you accuracy in milliseconds. This module calls gettimeofday(2) to get the time in microseconds and provides it in a few different formats. The same warning from that function applies: The resolution of the system clock is hardware dependent, and the time may be updated continuously or in ``ticks.''

N-API Support

As of version 3.0.0, this library is built using the N-API library. This should allow you to upgrade to newer versions of Node.js without having to reinstall / rebuild this library.

Version 3.0.0 and later also bundle prebuilt binaries for common systems in the npm package itself. These will be used if the version of Node you are using supports N-API (>= v6.14.2), otherwise the binary will be recompiled on install.

Installation

npm install microtime

Usage

microtime.now()

Get the current time in microseconds as an integer.

microtime.nowDouble()

Get the current time in seconds as a floating point number with microsecond accuracy (similar to time.time() in Python and Time.now.to_f in Ruby).

microtime.nowStruct()

Get the current time and return as a list with seconds and microseconds (matching the return value of gettimeofday(2)).

Example

> var microtime = require('microtime')
> microtime.now()
1297448895297028
> microtime.nowDouble()
1297448897.600976
> microtime.nowStruct()
[ 1297448902, 753875 ]

Estimating clock resolution

Starting with version 0.1.3, there is a test script that tries to guess the clock resolution. You can run it with npm test microtime. Example output:

microtime.now() = 1298960083489806
microtime.nowDouble() = 1298960083.511521
microtime.nowStruct() = [ 1298960083, 511587 ]

Guessing clock resolution...
Clock resolution observed: 1us