Benchmark DotNet

November 12, 2017

Method-level Benchmarking Using BenchmarkDotNet

Here is an example of method-level benchmarking using BenchmarkDotNet.

The BenchmarkDotNet site provides detailed instructions for setup.

The following example shows a basic setup to benchmark two C# methods.

Creating a Console Application for Benchmarking

First, create a console application and install the BenchmarkDotNet Nuget package:

PM> Install-Package BenchmarkDotNet

The following example benchmarks two different methods of assigning new values based on comparisons:


using System;

using BenchmarkDotNet.Attributes;
using BenchmarkDotNet.Running;

namespace BenchmarkZoo
{

    public class MyBenchmark
    {
        private bool _b1, _b2;

        // Add the [Benchmark] attribute for methods you want to benchmark.
        [Benchmark]
        public void RunAssignmentWithOr()
        {
            _b1 = _b1 | _b2;
        }

        [Benchmark]
        public void RunAssignmentWithReturn()
        {
            if (_b1) return;

            _b1 = _b2;
        }
    }

    public class Program
    {
        public static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var summary = BenchmarkRunner.Run<MyBenchmark>();

            Console.WriteLine(summary);
            Console.ReadKey();
        }
    }
}

Running the console program will run your annotated methods several times and generate a report including min, max, median, mean, and standard deviation for run times.