What Is Humanised Time?#

Timer for Python supports measurement of time from nanoseconds to days.

But. If a program runs for a minute, it doesn't make sense to display the output time in 60,000 milliseconds. And similarly if it runs an hour, it doesn't make sense to display the output time in 3,600 seconds.

Therefore, the output of Timer is automatically humanised so it's easier to read.

How It Impacts the Decimals Configuration

While you can measure time from nanoseconds to seconds with up to 9 decimals of a floating point number by using Timer(decimals=9), it doesn't always make sense. That's why the decimal configuration is overridden by humanised output in certain cases.

Examples and Ranges#

How different time ranges may appear in the terminal from fractions of a second to minutes, hours, days:

Range	Decimals	Terminal Output
Nanoseconds	No decimals	`Elapsed time: 123 nanoseconds`
From microseconds to minutes	Up to 9 decimals	`Elapsed time: 4.56 microseconds` `Elapsed time: 56.78 milliseconds` `Elapsed time: 7.89 seconds` `Elapsed time: 67.89 seconds (1m 8s)`
From hours to days	No decimals	`Elapsed time: 2h 3m 4s` `Elapsed time: 1d 2h 3m 4s`