Measuring elapsed time for a software routine

摘要

A method for determining if a measurement of an elapsed time for an execution of a software routine in a computer system is valid. A clock skew is used between the clocks of two processors such that the size of the clock skew is greater than the maximum possible elapsed time for the execution of the software routine. The software routine is executed with a clock value recorded before (start time) and after (end time) execution. An elapsed time is calculated as a difference between the start time and the end time. Whether the elapsed time is valid is determined by checking for a positive value of the elapsed time and comparing the value of the elapsed time with the clock skew.