Metronome

A simple library to add instrumentation to your Erlang code. This is a more dynamic way of doing timer:tc/3 or even a lazier version of it.

Stopwatch will measure runtime of parts of your code and calls a method on your predefined module with the results. For example, if you compile your code with {d, 'stopwatch_callback_mod', 'sample_callback'} and run the following:

-include_lib("metronome/include/metronome.hrl").

?timed(total_sum,
  begin
    ?timed(sum_1, First = lists:sum(lists:seq(0, 100))),
    ?timed(sum_2, Second = lists:sum(lists:seq(0, 100))),
    _ = First + Second
  end).

You will see 3 calls to sample_callback module:

sample_callback:tick(sum_1, Microseconds).
sample_callback:tick(sum_2, Microseconds).
sample_callback:tick(total_sum, Microseconds).

If you don't want to use the macros or if they are giving you trouble, you can also explicitly add the start/stop points. The above code can be written like below with no difference in execution:

{stopwatch_start, total_sum},

{stopwatch_start, sum_1},
First = lists:sum(lists:seq(0, 100)),
{stopwatch_stop},

{stopwatch_start, sum_2},
Second = lists:sum(lists:seq(0, 100)),
{stopwatch_stop},

_ = First + Second,

{stopwatch_stop}.

Usage

1. Add the package to your rebar.config

   {deps, [
      {metronome, "0.1.0"}
   ]}.
   

2. Add the parse transform to your rebar.config

   {erl_opts, [
     {parse_transform, stopwatch_transform}
   ]}.
   

3. [Optional] Configure a custom callback module by using overrides:

   {overrides, [
     {override, metronome, [
       {erl_opts, [
         {d, 'metronome_callback_mod', 'my_sample_mod'
       }]
     }]}
   ]}.
   

4. Instrument your code:

   {stopwatch_start, some_name},
     --- Intensive amount of work ---
   {stopwatch_stop}.
   

   or use the included macro:

   -include_lib("metronome/include/metronome.hrl").
   
   ?timed(some_name,
     --- Intensive amount of work ---
    ).
   

Why

I really wanted to learn more about parse transforms and also make my own life easier. I usually mix this library with statsderl to make things really easy to report timing of different parts of my code.

Custom callback

If you want a customized callback versus the provided one, you have to create a module that implements the metronome_callback behavior. An example using statsderl would look like this:

-module(metronome_statsderl).

metronome_callback).

-export([
  tick/2
]).

tick(Name, Microseconds) ->
  statsderl:timing(atom_to_list(Name), Microseconds, 1).