How to make a timer in Python

Make a timer in Python with an example: learn how to create a timer to keep track of time in your program with this tutorial.

Creating a Timer in Python

Creating a timer in Python is relatively simple. You can create a timer using the time module in the standard library. The time module provides a function, time.time(), that returns the number of seconds since the epoch (January 1, 1970). We can use this function to measure the amount of time that has elapsed between two points.

For example, we can use the following code to measure the amount of time it takes to run a certain block of code:

# Start the timer
start_time = time.time()

# Run some code
# ...

# End the timer
end_time = time.time()

# Calculate the elapsed time
elapsed_time = end_time - start_time

print("Time elapsed: ", elapsed_time)

In this example, we start the timer by recording the current time in the start_time variable. Then, we run the code that we want to measure. Finally, we record the end time in the end_time variable and calculate the elapsed time by subtracting the start time from the end time.

In addition to measuring the amount of time that has elapsed between two points, we can also use the time module to create a timer that runs for a certain amount of time. To do this, we can use the time.sleep() function. This function pauses the program for a certain amount of time (specified in seconds).

# Set the timer
timer_duration = 5 # seconds

# Start the timer
start_time = time.time()

# Loop until the timer has expired
while time.time() - start_time < timer_duration:
    # Do something
    # ...

# Timer has expired
print("Timer has expired!")

In this example, we set the duration of the timer to 5 seconds. We start the timer by recording the current time in the start_time variable. Then, we loop until the difference between the current time and the start time is greater than the duration of the timer. Once the loop has finished, we know that the timer has expired.

Using the time module, it is easy to measure the amount of time that has elapsed between two points or to create a timer that will run for a certain amount of time.