Linux' Hrtimer - Microsecond Precision

Linux' hrtimer - microsecond precision?

You can do what you want from user space

1. use clock_gettime() with CLOCK_REALTIME to get the time-of-day with nano-second resolution
2. use nanosleep() to yield the CPU until you are close to the time you need to execute your task (it is at least milli-second resolution).
3. use a spin loop with clock_gettime() until you reach the desired time
4. execute your task

The clock_gettime() function is implemented as a VDSO in recent kernels and modern x86 processors - it takes 20-30 nanoseconds to get the time-of-day with nano-second resolution - you should be able to call clock_gettime() over 30 times per micro-second. Using this method your task should dispatch within 1/30th of a micro-second of the intended time.

Is gettimeofday() guaranteed to be of microsecond resolution?

Maybe. But you have bigger problems. gettimeofday() can result in incorrect timings if there are processes on your system that change the timer (ie, ntpd). On a "normal" linux, though, I believe the resolution of gettimeofday() is 10us. It can jump forward and backward and time, consequently, based on the processes running on your system. This effectively makes the answer to your question no.

You should look into clock_gettime(CLOCK_MONOTONIC) for timing intervals. It suffers from several less issues due to things like multi-core systems and external clock settings.

Also, look into the clock_getres() function.

How to create a high resolution timer in Linux to measure program performance?

Check out clock_gettime, which is a POSIX interface to high-resolution timers.

If, having read the manpage, you're left wondering about the difference between CLOCK_REALTIME and CLOCK_MONOTONIC, see Difference between CLOCK_REALTIME and CLOCK_MONOTONIC?

See the following page for a complete example: http://www.guyrutenberg.com/2007/09/22/profiling-code-using-clock_gettime/

#include <iostream>
#include <time.h>
using namespace std;

timespec diff(timespec start, timespec end);

int main()
{
    timespec time1, time2;
    int temp;
    clock_gettime(CLOCK_PROCESS_CPUTIME_ID, &time1);
    for (int i = 0; i< 242000000; i++)
        temp+=temp;
    clock_gettime(CLOCK_PROCESS_CPUTIME_ID, &time2);
    cout<<diff(time1,time2).tv_sec<<":"<<diff(time1,time2).tv_nsec<<endl;
    return 0;
}

timespec diff(timespec start, timespec end)
{
    timespec temp;
    if ((end.tv_nsec-start.tv_nsec)<0) {
        temp.tv_sec = end.tv_sec-start.tv_sec-1;
        temp.tv_nsec = 1000000000+end.tv_nsec-start.tv_nsec;
    } else {
        temp.tv_sec = end.tv_sec-start.tv_sec;
        temp.tv_nsec = end.tv_nsec-start.tv_nsec;
    }
    return temp;
}

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