Simple speed benchmarking utilitiy to test PHP functions for their runtime.

benchmark.php

<?php


class Timer {

  private $start = 0;
  private $stop = 0;

  function Timer( $start = TRUE ) {
    if ( $start )
       $this->start();
  }

  function start() {
    $this->start = microtime(TRUE);
  }

  function stop() {
    $this->stop    = microtime(TRUE);
  }
  
  function elapsed() {
    if ( ! $this->start )
     throw new Exception("Timer not started");
    if ( ! $this->stop )
     return microtime(TRUE) - $this->start;
    else
     return $this->stop - $this->start;
  }

  function reset() {
    $this->start   = 0;
    $this->stop    = 0;
  }

}


class Benchmark {

  static function run( $f, $iterations ) {

    $args = func_get_args();
    array_shift($args);
    array_shift($args);

    // Note: this way of running benchmark tests
    // adds quite a overhead since "call_user_func_array"
    // is not the fastest way to execute some code.
    // Anyways it shouldn't affect comparison results as long
    // all parts of the comparison will be run by this method.
    // The delely will be equally applied to all tests.
    
    // TODO: If somebody could show a way to reduce the
    // expenses of "call_user_func_array" I will happily apply
    // that here.

    $timer = new Timer();
    for ($i=0; $i<$iterations; $i++) {
      call_user_func_array($f, $args);
    }
    return $timer->elapsed();
  }

  static function getReport( $duration, $iterations ) {
    $r = number_format($duration, 4) . " seconds for $iterations runs.\n";
    $r .= number_format(($duration / $iterations), 4) . " seconds per run\n";
    return $r;
  }

}




$iterations = 100000;

$test_data = array(
  "a" => array(
    1 => 234.1023,
    "two" => "hello world",
  ),
  "b" => array(
    "not true" => FALSE,
    "not false" => TRUE,
  ),
);


$test_func = function($data) {
  serialize($data);
};


$duration = Benchmark::run( $test_func, $iterations, $test_data );
print Benchmark::getReport($duration, $iterations);