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Asking what time it is — GET TIME, GET RUN TIME, GET TIME STAMP, WAIT

Level: 201 · working knowledge

One line: sy-datum and sy-uzeit are set when the program starts and refreshed only by GET TIME; GET RUN TIME FIELD gives microseconds for timing a block; GET TIME STAMP FIELD gives a UTC timestamp; and WAIT UP TO n SECONDS pauses politely — and commits the database LUW while it does.

The four

Statement Gives Note
GET TIME. refreshes sy-datum, sy-uzeit, sy-timlo, sy-datlo, sy-zonlo a job that never calls it prints its start time at the end
GET RUN TIME FIELD lv. microseconds since the first call subtract two readings to time a block
GET TIME STAMP FIELD lv. TIMESTAMP or TIMESTAMPL in UTC the unambiguous one; see Dates and times
WAIT UP TO n SECONDS. pauses, releasing the work process implicit database commit

The WAIT commit is the fact people learn the hard way: a WAIT inside a sequence that assumed an open LUW commits half of it. WAIT FOR ASYNCHRONOUS TASKS (with STARTING NEW TASK) and WAIT FOR MESSAGING CHANNELS are the same statement with the same side effect.

Timing honestly

GET RUN TIME is the right tool for "is A faster than B" in a program, with two cautions: the first execution of anything includes loading and buffering costs, so measure the second run; and a difference of a few hundred microseconds is noise on a shared server. For anything that matters, the trace tools measure the whole call, including the database.

z_kw_get_time.prog.abap — pasted here by tools/check_examples.py. Syntax-checked, never run: abaplint parses and type-checks it against the release in abaplint.json, but no system has produced output for it, so this page shows none.

REPORT z_kw_get_time.

" sy-datum and sy-uzeit are set when the program starts and refreshed only by
" GET TIME. A job that prints sy-uzeit at the end prints its START time
" unless something asked again in between.
WRITE: / 'at start ', sy-uzeit.
GET TIME.
WRITE: / 'refreshed', sy-uzeit.

" GET RUN TIME FIELD: microseconds since the first call in this program. The
" cheapest way to time a block -- and a measurement, which beats a guess.
DATA lv_t0 TYPE i.
DATA lv_t1 TYPE i.
DATA lv_sum TYPE i.
GET RUN TIME FIELD lv_t0.
DO 100000 TIMES.
  lv_sum = lv_sum + sy-index.
ENDDO.
GET RUN TIME FIELD lv_t1.
DATA(lv_took) = lv_t1 - lv_t0.
WRITE: / 'loop took (microseconds)', lv_took.

" A time stamp is wall-clock time in UTC, independent of who is logged on and
" from where. See the dates and times topic for turning it back into a date.
GET TIME STAMP FIELD DATA(lv_stamp).
WRITE: / 'utc time stamp', lv_stamp.

" WAIT UP TO releases the work process rather than spinning -- and it also
" ends the database LUW with an implicit commit, which is the fact to know.
WAIT UP TO 1 SECONDS.
GET TIME.
WRITE: / 'after wait', sy-uzeit.

If you are coming from another language

  • Python. time.perf_counter() is GET RUN TIME; datetime.now() is GET TIME; time.sleep() is WAIT UP TO — minus the commit.
  • Everywhere. Wall clock versus monotonic clock is the same distinction as sy-uzeit versus GET RUN TIME.

See also