Calculating Elapsed Time for a Visual Basic Procedure

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This article was previously published under Q111268

SUMMARY

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

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Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied. This includes, but is not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language that is being demonstrated and with the tools that are used to create and to debug procedures. Microsoft support engineers 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 requirements. 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, 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.

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Example of Visual Basic 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, Applications Edition. The amount of time it takes to accomplish this procedure will be displayed in a message box.

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Example of Visual Basic 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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REFERENCES

"Visual Basic User's Guide," version 5.0, Chapter 8, page 158

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APPLIES TO

Microsoft Excel 97 Standard Edition

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kbprogramming KB111268

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Retired KB Content Disclaimer

This article was written about products for which Microsoft no longer offers support. Therefore, this article is offered "as is" and will no longer be updated.

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