DESCR 742 B

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  1. Unix's 'time' utility is a simple and often effective way of measuring how
  2. long a command takes to run ('wall time'). Unfortunately, running a command
  3. once can give misleading timings: the process may create a cache on its first
  4. execution, running faster subsequently; other processes may cause the command
  5. to be starved of CPU or IO time; etc. It is common to see people run 'time'
  6. several times and take whichever values they feel most comfortable with.
  7. Inevitably, this causes problems.
  8. multitime is, in essence, a simple extension to time which runs a command
  9. multiple times and prints the timing means, standard deviations, mins,
  10. medians, and maxes having done so. This can give a much better understanding
  11. of the command's performance.