C Function Comparison

Hello again, its me! This time we will talk about how we compare Funtions to see which one is better! I will compare using time that the function takes from start to finish. And also explain what you have to do to calculate other stuff like iterations or specific calculations of any algorithm or comparations and swaps of sorting algorithms. So, without further let’s get started!

Getting Time:

To get the Time that a function runs we will use some methods from the time.h C Library! We will get the time before and the time after, and then find the time that has passed subtracting end from start!

We use 2 Variables of type clock_t called start and end, and a double Variable double time_passed that will store the difference in seconds (including floating point) from start to end. To get the clocktime we will use the function clock() that returns a Variable of type clock_t. And finally then the time_passed will not be exactly the subtraction, but we will also need to divide this number with an constant number called CLOCKS_PER_SEC, cause we actually calculate the number of clocks passed and not the number of seconds passed and then convert it using that!

So, our Code looks like this:

clock_t start, end;

double time_passed;

start = clock();

// call function

end = clock();

time_passed = (double)(end-start)/CLOCKS_PER_SEC;

Calculating something inside of a function:

When this something is inside of an non-recursive function we simply use another variable and calculate it. But, when we are in an recursive function we have to either use global variables, so that the variable is visible everywhere, or use static variables that we declare in this function. Static variables are those whose value doesn’t change in different invocations of the function in which they are declared! Its pretty simple to use this concept for calculating Swaps inside of an Recursive Sorting Function like QuickSort or MergeSort, but I will use only 2 different versions of InsertionSort to keep it simple!

Compare Functions using Time:

I will use 2 different implementations of the InsertionSort Algorithm, one is non-recursive and one will be recursive. We will calculate the time that the algorithms need to finish!

Code:

#include <stdio.h>

#include <stdlib.h>

#include <time.h>

#define N 20000

// non-recursive

void insertionSort(int arr[], int n)

   int i, j, key;

   for (i = 1; i < n; i++)

       key = arr[i];

       j = i-1;

       while (j >= 0 && arr[j] > key)

           arr[j+1] = arr[j];

           j = j-1;

       arr[j+1] = key;

// recursive

void insertionSortRecursive(int arr[], int n)

    if (n <= 1)

        return;

    insertionSortRecursive(arr, n-1);

    int last = arr[n-1];

    int j = n-2;

    while (j >= 0 && arr[j] > last)

        arr[j+1] = arr[j];

        j--;

    arr[j+1] = last;

int main(){

	int A[N], B[N];

	int i;

	// fill both with same Random Numbers

	for(i = 0; i < N; i++){

		B[i] = A[i] = 1 + rand()%1000;

	printf("\n");

	clock_t start, end;

	double time_passed;

	printf("InsertionSort non-recursive:\n");

	start = clock();

	insertionSort(A, N);

	end = clock();

	time_passed = (double)(end-start)/CLOCKS_PER_SEC;

	printf("Time: %fs\n", time_passed);

	printf("InsertionSort recursive:\n");

	start = clock();

	insertionSortRecursive(B, N);

	end = clock();

	time_passed = (double)(end-start)/CLOCKS_PER_SEC;

	printf("Time: %fs\n", time_passed);

Compare Functions using Calculations:

I will compare two function that find the GCD (Greatest Common Divisor). The first is one the algorithm we all known called Euklid Algorithm and the second one is an Consecutive integer checking algorithm. We will count the number of mod calculations those algorithms do and see which one is better (it’s obvious that Euklid is the fastest!).

Code:

#include <stdio.h>

#include <stdlib.h>

void gcd(int m, int n){ // euklid algorithm

    int r;

    static int calc_num = 0; // mod count actually

    if(n == 0){

	printf("GCD: %d\n", m);

	printf("Calculations: %d\n", calc_num);

	calc_num = 0; //reset calc_num

	return;

    r = m % n;

    calc_num++; // mod count

    gcd(n, r);

void gcd2(int m, int n){ // consecutive integer checking algorithm

    int t;

    int calc_num = 0; // mod count actually

    if(m < n){

	t = m;

    else{

	t = n;

    while(t > 0){

	calc_num++; // mod count

	if(m % t == 0){

		calc_num++; // mod count 2

		if(n % t == 0){

			printf("GCD: %d\n", t);

			printf("Calculations: %d\n", calc_num);

			return;

	t--;

int main(){

    srand(time(NULL));

    int m = 100000 + rand() % (200000 - 100000 + 1);

    int n = 100000 + rand() % (200000 - 100000 + 1);

    printf("m: %d, n: %d\n", m, n);

    printf("Euclid algorithm:\n");

    gcd(m, n);

    printf("Consecutive integer checking algorithm:\n");

    gcd2(m, n);

    return 0;

This is the end of today’s post! Hope you enjoyed this change!

I wanted to get away from the everyday Logic Design Posts for one day, and upload something else. Also, tomorrow I may not be able to upload something, cause I will not be home and I don’t know if I will find the time to have something ready to just post it!

Until next time…Bye!