# Compilation-ignoring timer?
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/compilation-ignoring-timer/93512
**Category:** Internals & Design
**Created:** [January 25, 2023, 3:01pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/compilation-ignoring-timer/93512 "2023-01-25T15:01:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@BioTurboNick](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/BioTurboNick)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2023, 3:01pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/compilation-ignoring-timer/93512/1 "2023-01-25T15:01:18Z")
Does Julia have, or would it be possible to add, a compilation-ignoring timer?
Use case: setting a time limit for running a function, as is common for optimizers. The first execution will be necessarily longer than the later executions due to compilation, but you may want to set a time limit that’s a lot shorter than that first execution.
A workaround is to ensure it is compiled prior to optimization, but that’s a bit annoying to remember to do each time.
A bit easier would be if packages that need to track time could do so in a way that tries to ignores compilation time. And for that, you’d need a timer that can be informed that Julia is currently compiling.
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### Author:  [@nsajko](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/nsajko)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2023, 12:25am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/compilation-ignoring-timer/93512/2 "2023-02-03T00:25:23Z")
I’m guessing this isn’t implemented because it wouldn’t be as useful as it seems: even if you don’t count the compilation time towards the measured time, the compilation would still interfere with the performance so the resulting timings wouldn’t be completely relevant.
EDIT: On the other hand, it’s weird that we have `@timev` which tells us how much of the total elapsed time was spent compiling, but `@timed` doesn’t give us that data.
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### Author:  [@jlperla](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jlperla)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2023, 12:45am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/compilation-ignoring-timer/93512/3 "2023-02-03T00:45:50Z")
> [@BioTurboNick](#):
>
> Does Julia have, or would it be possible to add, a compilation-ignoring timer?
[GitHub - JuliaCI/BenchmarkTools.jl: A benchmarking framework for the Julia language](https://github.com/JuliaCI/BenchmarkTools.jl) is the defacto standard package for this.
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### Author:  [@BioTurboNick](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/BioTurboNick)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2023, 1:32am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/compilation-ignoring-timer/93512/4 "2023-02-03T01:32:35Z")
This package is for interactive benchmarking, which is not what I’m asking for. All it does to “ignore compilation” is to pre-run the method.
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### Author:  [@BioTurboNick](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/BioTurboNick)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2023, 1:37am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/compilation-ignoring-timer/93512/5 "2023-02-03T01:37:54Z")
To the first, I don’t think an imperfect adjustment is bad. If more could be done to account for other first-run delays, that would be great.