[fpc-pascal] Very vague gettickcount64 description?

[Michael Van Canneyt]

On Sun, 8 Sep 2019, Yuriy Sydorov wrote:

> On 08.09.2019 10:09, Michael Van Canneyt wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On Sat, 7 Sep 2019, Zoe Peterson wrote:
>> 
>>>> From: Martin Frb <lazarus at mfriebe.de>
>>>> But that does not mean, it needs to be changed on existing targets.
>>>> And if it is not going to be changed, then it can be documented.
>>>
>>> I agree with everything Martin has said, though IMO GetTickCount must 
> return values in ms on every single platform and 
>>> any that can't should have it removed. It's not a precision timer and it 
> should not be an intrinsic for whatever 
>>> random RDTSC-like instruction the current platform has. It's used for 
> checking (rough) elapsed times. I honestly can't 
>>> think of a single use for the current function as defined, especially in a 
> cross-platform app. Precision and accuracy 
>>> can vary, but unspecified units with no way to query them is ridiculous.
>> 
>> For relative measurements, units are not needed. A ratio has no units, the
>> only thing that is required is that the units for both measurements are the
>> same (which should be the case on a single platform).
>
> Strictly defined measurement units are important for cross-platform (and 
> Delphi) compatibility. So GetTickCount_2 - 
> GetTickCount_1 must return how many milliseconds have elapsed between calls 
> of GetTickCount regardless of the platform 
> where the program is running.

I understand, but I remain with my point of view that this is a worthless measurement
if you simply do gettick; operation; gettick;

Since gettick itself takes time (definitely the fallback to fpgettimeofday) 
the measurement itself influences the resulting time (a bit like quantum theory).
So for small times, I would distrust anything measured like that.

For good measurements, you need to repeat the operation say 100x or 1000x 
and average out. And then you can just use now().

Michael.