This computes the average run time of a piece of python code.

benchmark.py

# File: benchmark.py
# Desc: This computes the average run time of a piece of code.
# Author: Falcon Dai
# Date: 5/2/2012

import time

global_dict = globals()

# should be run as soon as the module is imported to 
def set_global_dict(dict):
	global global_dict
	global_dict = dict

def update_global_dict(dict):
	global_dict.update(dict)
	
def perform_time(code, count=1000, gd=None):
	"""
	execute a piece of code for some times and return the average execution time.
	
	@param: code - the code to be execute and time
			count - the number of times to execute the code (defult: 1000)
			gd - the global identifier dictionary in the execution
	@return: the average time of execution of the code in seconds
	"""

	if gd == None:
		gd = global_dict
	
	start_time = time.clock()
	for i in range(count):
		eval(code, gd)
	return (time.clock() - start_time) / count
	
if __name__=='__main__':
	for i in range(10):
		print perform_time('1+1', 10**i)