Bash Execution Timer

test.sh

#!/bin/bash

die() { echo "$@" 1>&2 ; exit 1; }
[ $# -gt 2 ] && die "Max 2 arguments."
PROGRAM=$1
[ -z "$PROGRAM" ] && die "No arguments passed."
[ ! -f "$PROGRAM" ] && die "Program does not exist."
ITER=${2:-1000} # default 1000 iterations
echo "Executing $ITER tests on $PROGRAM."
for i in `seq 1 $ITER`; do
  (time ./$PROGRAM)  2>&1 > /dev/null | grep real | awk '{print $2}'|sed "s/^[0-9]\+m//"
done | awk '{sum += $1} END {print sum / NR, "s"}'

About

This script displays the average execution time of the given program.
By default the program will be run 1000 times unless a second parameter is given.
It checks for the existence of the file first as otherwise time will return the time taken to execute a non-existent program and trick you into thinking your program is lightning fast.

Usage

./test.sh program [iterations]

Notes

On line 12 we redirect the output of the time command then strip away most of time's output.