In the previous section, I mentioned that PHP 5 offered a slightly modified version of the native “microtime()” function, since there’s no need to create a custom function to obtain a float number from it. But you have to make sure to call this function with the “get_as_float” parameter. Then it will neatly return the corresponding timestamp as a float value.

In order to illustrate the usage of the “microtime()” function with PHP 5, I created a basic example that shows how to use this function for benchmarking purposes. Have a look a the following code sample:

// example using 'microtime()' function with PHP 5

$startTime=microtime(true);

// do nothing for a while

usleep(100);

$endTime=microtime(true);

$totalTime=$endTime-$startTime;

echo 'Time spent in doing nothing was '.$totalTime.' seconds';

In this case, the above script simply calls the “microtime()” function with the “get_as_float” parameter set to true. Lastly, it displays the elapsed time as a float number. Of course, this condition is clearly demonstrated by the below output:

Time spent in doing nothing was 0.00532197952271 seconds

In addition to the example that you learned before, it’s possible to define a simple wrapper for the “microtime()” function in PHP 5 and create the following script:

// define 'getMicrotime()'function - PHP 5

function getMicrotime(){

return microtime(true);

}

$startTime=getMicrotime();

// do nothing for a while

usleep(100);

$endTime=getMicrotime();

$totalTime=$endTime-$startTime;

echo 'Time spent in doing nothing was '.$totalTime.' seconds';

/*

displays the following:

Time spent in doing nothing was 0.00789403915405 seconds

*/

As you can see, creating simple and effective timing scripts is something that can easily be done with PHP 4 or PHP 5, and they can be used as decent benchmarking approaches too.

So far, I demonstrated the capacity offered by PHP 4 and PHP 5 respectively for developing simple and efficient timing functions. However, it’s possible (and even desirable) to go one step further and develop an object-oriented timing approach that can be used for benchmarking purposes as well.

In this case, I’m simply talking about creating a timer class that can be utilized, obviously, to time several scripts and applications together. Therefore, I suggest you read the following section, where I’ll explain how to build these specific classes.