Article ID: 213481 - Last Review: November 23, 2006 - Revision: 3.5

XL2000: Calculating Elapsed Time for a Visual Basic Procedure

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SUMMARY

In Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications, you can time procedures, statements, and functions by typing the Timer function before and after the statements that you want to time.

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The Visual Basic Timer function can be used to record the starting and ending times for a series of commands. The following example sets the variable StartTime to the current system time, runs the code to be timed, and then sets the variable EndTime to the current system time. Finally, the elapsed time between StartTime and EndTime is printed to the debug window using the Debug.Print command.

Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language being demonstrated and the tools used to create and debug procedures. Microsoft support professionals can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific needs.
If you have limited programming experience, you may want to contact a Microsoft Certified Partner or Microsoft Advisory Services. For more information, visit these Microsoft Web sites:

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For more information about the support options that are available and about how to contact Microsoft, visit the following Microsoft Web site:http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;CNTACTMS (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;en-us;cntactms)

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Visual Basic Sample Code

Sub ElapsedTime()
   Dim StartTime As Double, EndTime As Double

   'Stores start time in variable "StartTime"
   StartTime = Timer

   'Place your code to be timed here

   'Stores end time in variable "EndTime"
   EndTime = Timer

   'Prints execution time in the debug window
   Debug.Print "Execution time in seconds: ", EndTime - StartTime
End Sub

After you run the ElapsedTime macro, you can see the elapsed time in the Immediate pane of the Debug window. To view the Immediate pane of the Debug window, click Debug Window on the View menu.

The following Visual Basic macro creates a text file containing a list of error messages that can be generated in Visual Basic for Applications. The amount of time it takes to accomplish this procedure is displayed in a message box.

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Visual Basic Sample Code

Sub ErrorCodes()
   Dim StartTime As Double, EndTime As Double, X

   'creates a file of error messages
   StartTime = Timer 'Stores start time in variable "StartTime"

   Open "vbaerror.txt" For Output As #1

   For X = 1 To 3300
      Print #1, X, Error$(X)
   Next X

   Close #1

   EndTime = Timer 'Stores end time in variable "endTime"

   'Shows Message Box with elapsed time
   MsgBox "Execution time in seconds: " + Format$(EndTime - StartTime)
End Sub

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