3

I have a script which copies some files to a backup storage. And I added a timer to see how much time it would use doing this. I used

$script:start = Get-Date
$start = (Get-Date)
Copy-Item $var0, $var1, $var2 Folders -force -recurse -verbose -Exclude name
$endFulltime = (Get-Date)
"$(($endFulltime-$startFulltime).totalminutes)"

The problem with this is the output. It gives me something like 0,34255234561245 minutes or if I put it in seconds, it just looks the same, but with different numbers. So the problem isn't that it gives me a wrong output; it just looks a bit messy.

Would it be possible to get output like 5 minutes and 43 seconds? Instead of this really long number.

Peter Mortensen
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Knut Óláfr Roland
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  • Is there any reason you define "start" variable twice? – Peter Jul 23 '13 at 16:17
  • I was answering the question "as asked" (how to get the output in a better format), but Peter is right, if you want to get the amount of time it takes to run a cmdlet or script, you really should be using **Measure-Command** – Adi Inbar Jul 23 '13 at 16:47
  • @adi inbar thanks for your encouraging. I believe yours works too. Just 2 different approaches for the same thing. – Peter Jul 23 '13 at 21:30
  • Just for learning, there are another 2 good ways too: .NET Stopwatch object and "Get-History" way - they are really impressive: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3513650/timing-a-commands-execution-in-powershell – Peter Jul 23 '13 at 21:34

3 Answers3

9

Use:

Measure-Command {copy-item $var0, $var1, $var2 Folders -force -recurse -verbose -Exclude name} | select @{n="time";e={$_.Minutes,"Minutes",$_.Seconds,"Seconds",$_.Milliseconds,"Milliseconds" -join " "}}

Measure-Command is to measure the command execution time. Use a hash table with "Select-Object" to customize the output.

The output is in my lab is (I am using the Get-Process cmdlet for testing):

time
----
0 Minutes 0 Seconds 16 Milliseconds

There is a "duration" property too. I will dig into it to see if that can simplify the things.

Peter Mortensen
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Peter
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2

Just use the Minutes and Seconds properties instead of TotalMinutes and TotalSeconds. The Total- properties are double precision floating point numbers giving you the total timespan in the given unit of time, whereas the properties that are just the name of the unit (Days, Hours, Minutes, Seconds...) give you that unit's component of the timespan as an integer. So to get an output like "x minutes and y seconds", do this:

$elapsedTime = $endFulltime - $start
"{0} minute(s) and {1} second(s)" -f $elapsedTime.Minutes, $elapsedTime.Seconds

or if you prefer, make the second line:

"$($elapsedTime.Minutes) minute(s) and $($elapsedTime.Seconds) seconds"
Adi Inbar
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2

I was looking for the same type of output as the OP.

To get what I wanted:

$script:start = get-date
$startFulltime = (Get-Date)
copy-item $var0, $var1, $var2 Folders -force -recurse -verbose -Exclude name
$endFulltime = (Get-Date)
(New-TimeSpan $startFulltime $endFulltime).ToString("hh'h:'mm'm:'ss's'")

The result will be something like:

02h:42m:12s
Peter Mortensen
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MNParadox
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