Benchmark function that display average runtime for a command

avg_time

avg_time() {
  #
  # usage: avg_time n command ...
  #
  n=$1; shift
  (($# > 0)) || return                   # bail if no command given
  for ((i = 0; i < n; i++)); do
      { time -p "$@" &>/dev/null; } 2>&1 # ignore the output of the command
                                          # but collect time's output in stdout
  done | awk '
      /real/ { real = real + $2; nr++ }
      /user/ { user = user + $2; nu++ }
      /sys/  { sys  = sys  + $2; ns++}
      END    {
                if (nr>0) printf("real %f\n", real/nr);
                if (nu>0) printf("user %f\n", user/nu);
                if (ns>0) printf("sys %f\n",  sys/ns)
              }'
}

This function can be used to benchmark the average runtime of a program. To test avg_time 5 sleep 1