Accurate Measurement of Small Execution Times — Getting Around Measurement Errors

Engineers and researchers often require accurate measurements of small execution times or duration of events in a program. Errors in the measurement facility can introduce important challenges, especially when measuring small intervals. Mitigating approaches commonly used exhibit several issues; in particular, they only reduce the effect of the error, and never eliminate it. In this letter, we propose a technique to effectively eliminate measurement errors and obtain a robust statistical estimate of execution time or duration of events in a program. The technique is simple to implement, yet it entirely eliminates the systematic (non-random) component of the measurement error, as opposed to simply reduce it. Experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method.