hyperfine - Man Page

command-line benchmarking tool

Examples (TL;DR)

tldr.sh

Synopsis

hyperfine [-ihVN] [--warmup NUM] [--min-runs NUM] [--max-runs NUM] [--runs NUM] [--setup CMD] [--prepare CMD] [--cleanup CMD] [--parameter-scan VAR MIN MAX] [--parameter-step-size DELTA] [--parameter-list VAR VALUES] [--shell SHELL] [--style TYPE] [--sort METHOD] [--time-unit UNIT] [--export-asciidoc FILE] [--export-csv FILE] [--export-json FILE] [--export-markdown FILE] [--export-orgmode FILE] [--output WHERE] [--input WHERE] [--command-name NAME] [COMMAND...]

Description

A command-line benchmarking tool which includes:

Options

-w,  --warmup NUM

Perform NUM warmup runs before the actual benchmark. This can be used to fill (disk) caches for I/O-heavy programs.

-m,  --min-runs NUM

Perform at least NUM runs for each command. Default: 10.

-M,  --max-runs NUM

Perform at most NUM runs for each command. By default, there is no limit.

-r,  --runs NUM

Perform exactly NUM runs for each command. If this option is not specified, hyperfine automatically determines the number of runs.

-s,  --setup CMD...

Execute CMD once before each set of timing runs. This is useful for compiling your software or with the provided parameters, or to do any other work that should happen once before a series of benchmark runs, not every time as would happen with the --prepare option.

-p,  --prepare CMD...

Execute CMD before each timing run. This is useful for clearing disk caches, for example. The --prepare option can be specified once for all commands or multiple times, once for each command. In the latter case, each preparation command will be run prior to the corresponding benchmark command.

-c,  --cleanup CMD...

Execute CMD after the completion of all benchmarking runs for each individual command to be benchmarked. This is useful if the commands to be benchmarked produce artifacts that need to be cleaned up.

-P,  --parameter-scan VAR MIN MAX

Perform benchmark runs for each value in the range MIN..MAX. Replaces the string '{VAR}' in each command by the current parameter value.

Example:

hyperfine -P threads 1 8 'make -j {threads}'

This performs benchmarks for 'make -j 1', 'make -j 2', ..., 'make -j 8'.

To have the value increase following different patterns, use shell arithmetics.

Example:

hyperfine -P size 0 3 'sleep $((2**{size}))'

This performs benchmarks with power of 2 increases: 'sleep 1', 'sleep 2', 'sleep 4', ...

The exact syntax may vary depending on your shell and OS.

-D,  --parameter-step-size DELTA

This argument requires --parameter-scan to be specified as well. Traverse the range MIN..MAX in steps of DELTA.

Example:

hyperfine -P delay 0.3 0.7 -D 0.2 'sleep {delay}'

This performs benchmarks for 'sleep 0.3', 'sleep 0.5' and 'sleep 0.7'.

-L,  --parameter-list VAR VALUES

Perform benchmark runs for each value in the comma-separated list of VALUES. Replaces the string '{VAR}' in each command by the current parameter value.

Example:

hyperfine -L compiler gcc,clang '{compiler} -O2 main.cpp'

This performs benchmarks for 'gcc -O2 main.cpp' and 'clang -O2 main.cpp'.

The option can be specified multiple times to run benchmarks for all possible parameter combinations.

-S,  --shell SHELL

Set the shell to use for executing benchmarked commands. This can be the name or the path to the shell executable, or a full command line like "bash --norc". It can also be set to "default" to explicitly select the default shell on this platform. Finally, this can also be set to "none" to disable the shell. In this case, commands will be executed directly. They can still have arguments, but more complex things like "sleep 0.1; sleep 0.2" are not possible without a shell.

-N

An alias for '--shell=none'.

-i,  --ignore-failure

Ignore non-zero exit codes of the benchmarked programs.

--style TYPE

Set output style TYPE (default: auto). Set this to 'basic' to disable output coloring and interactive elements. Set it to 'full' to enable all effects even if no interactive terminal was detected. Set this to 'nocolor' to keep the interactive output without any colors. Set this to 'color' to keep the colors without any interactive output. Set this to 'none' to disable all the output of the tool.

--sort METHOD

Specify the sort order of the speed comparison summary and the exported tables for markup formats (Markdown, AsciiDoc, org-mode):

auto (default)

the speed comparison will be ordered by time and the markup tables will be ordered by command (input order).

command

order benchmarks in the way they were specified

mean-time

order benchmarks by mean runtime

-u,  --time-unit UNIT

Set the time unit to be used. Possible values: microsecond, millisecond, second. If the option is not given, the time unit is determined automatically. This option affects the standard output as well as all export formats except for CSV and JSON.

--export-asciidoc FILE

Export the timing summary statistics as an AsciiDoc table to the given FILE. The output time unit can be changed using the --time-unit option.

--export-csv FILE

Export the timing summary statistics as CSV to the given FILE. If you need the timing results for each individual run, use the JSON export format. The output time unit is always seconds.

--export-json FILE

Export the timing summary statistics and timings of individual runs as JSON to the given FILE. The output time unit is always seconds.

--export-markdown FILE

Export the timing summary statistics as a Markdown table to the given FILE. The output time unit can be changed using the --time-unit option.

--export-orgmode FILE

Export the timing summary statistics as an Emacs org-mode table to the given FILE. The output time unit can be changed using the --time-unit option.

--show-output

Print the stdout and stderr of the benchmark instead of suppressing it. This will increase the time it takes for benchmarks to run, so it should only be used for debugging purposes or when trying to benchmark output speed.

--output WHERE

Control where the output of the benchmark is redirected. Note that some programs like 'grep' detect when standard output is /dev/null and apply certain optimizations. To avoid that, consider using --output=pipe.

WHERE can be:

null

Redirect output to /dev/null (the default).

pipe

Feed the output through a pipe before discarding it.

inherit

Don't redirect the output at all (same as '--show-output').

<FILE>

Write the output to the given file.

--input WHERE

Control where the input of the benchmark comes from.

WHERE can be:

null

Read from /dev/null (the default).

<FILE>

Read the input from the given file.

-n,  --command-name NAME

Give a meaningful NAME to a command. This can be specified multiple times if several commands are benchmarked.

-h,  --help

Print help

-V,  --version

Print version

Examples

Basic benchmark of 'find . -name todo.txt':

hyperfine 'find . -name todo.txt'

Perform benchmarks for 'sleep 0.2' and 'sleep 3.2' with a minimum 5 runs each:

hyperfine --min-runs 5 'sleep 0.2' 'sleep 3.2'

Perform a benchmark of 'grep' with a warm disk cache by executing 3 runs up front that are not part of the measurement: 

hyperfine --warmup 3 'grep -R TODO *'

Export the results of a parameter scan benchmark to a markdown table: 

hyperfine --export-markdown output.md --parameter-scan time 1 5 'sleep {time}'

Demonstrate when each of --setup, --prepare, cmd and --cleanup will run:

hyperfine -L n 1,2 -r 2 --show-output \
	--setup 'echo setup n={n}' \
	--prepare 'echo prepare={n}' \
	--cleanup 'echo cleanup n={n}' \
	'echo command n={n}'

Author

David Peter <mail@david-peter.de>

Source, bug tracker, and additional information can be found on GitHub: https://github.com/sharkdp/hyperfine