How to use the stopwatch to measure the elapsed time between multiple points?

Question

I want to measure the current elapsed time in my code and the time elapsed between multiple code segments. An example:

When i want to get the elapsed time i am doing

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    Stopwatch _stopwatch = new Stopwatch();
    _stopwatch.Start();

    ... do something ...

    _stopwatch.Stop();
    Console.WriteLine("Time elapsed total: {0:hh\\:mm\\:ss}", _stopwatch.Elapsed);
}

I can also output the elapsed time during code executing like this

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    Stopwatch _stopwatch = new Stopwatch();
    _stopwatch.Start();

    ... do something ...
    Console.WriteLine("Time elapsed: {0:hh\\:mm\\:ss}", _stopwatch.Elapsed);

    ... do something ...
    Console.WriteLine("Time elapsed: {0:hh\\:mm\\:ss}", _stopwatch.Elapsed);

    ... do something ...
    Console.WriteLine("Time elapsed: {0:hh\\:mm\\:ss}", _stopwatch.Elapsed);

    ... do something ...
    Console.WriteLine("Time elapsed: {0:hh\\:mm\\:ss}", _stopwatch.Elapsed);


    // finally
    _stopwatch.Stop();
    Console.WriteLine("Time elapsed total: {0:hh\\:mm\\:ss}", _stopwatch.Elapsed);
}

But what i want to is something like this:

Code startet ... | elapsed time 00:02:01:sss | this single segment took 00:02:01:sss

Connected to database ... | elapsed time 00:02:04:sss | this single segment took 00:00:03:sss

Added 40.000 rows ... | elapsed time 00:05:23:sss | this single segment took 00:03:19:sss

So what i want is beside having the total elapsed time and the time stopped for the single sections in code the time for one single section beside the elapsed time.

How could i do this?

Answer 1

I think i solved it. For me it looks maybe some experts can check for "optimization"?

I am storing the last timespan in an vraiable and subsctracting the last on from the current one:

    private static TimeSpan _pastTimeSpan;

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        _stopwatch = new Stopwatch();
        _stopwatch.Start();

        _pastTimeSpan = _stopwatch.Elapsed;

        ... code ...

        MyElapsedTime(_stopwatch.Elapsed);

        ... code ...

        MyElapsedTime(_stopwatch.Elapsed);

        ... code ...

        MyElapsedTime(_stopwatch.Elapsed);

        _stopwatch.Stop();
        Console.WriteLine("Time elapsed total: {0:hh\\:mm\\:ss}", _stopwatch.Elapsed);
     }

    private static void MyElapsedTime(TimeSpan ts)
    {
        // Get the last TimeSpan
        TimeSpan pastTimeSpan = _pastTimeSpan;

        // Update last TimeSpan with current
        _pastTimeSpan = ts;

        // Get difference between two
        TimeSpan diffTs = ts.Subtract(pastTimeSpan);

        Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Elapsed time {0}:{1} | Segment took {2}:{3}", Math.Floor(ts.TotalMinutes), ts.ToString("ss\\.ff"), Math.Floor(diffTs.TotalMinutes), diffTs.ToString("ss\\.ff")));
    }

And the output will be

Elapsed time 0:01.70 | Segment took 0:01.70
Elapsed time 0:01.78 | Segment took 0:00.07