note Adam $^T is the time that the script started. So end your script by returning [time|time()]-$^T. You might want to put this in the sig die handler: <code> # your script goes here BEGIN { $SIG{__DIE__} = sub { print + time() - $^T, $/, @_ } } print + time() - $^T, $/ </code> That prints the run time of your script in seconds.<P> Update: By the way, there is a module called Benchmark that is great for testing algorithms and routines and such. [Turnstep] wrote a great [tutorials|tutorial] on it called <i>[id://8745]</i> <P><B>Update</B>: For a variety of reasons, it is much better (and simpler too!) to use a single END block instead of the repition that I suggested. Thanks [merlyn] for pointing this out. (I also like the use of [warn])<P>Also, If your script is taking longer then a minute or two, you might want to break down those seconds to be minutes:seconds, but don't forget the more work you do after that last call to [time], the less accurate the stamp. (Well, time only has a granularity of a second... so you actually have plenty of room, but anyway...) <code> END { $a=time-$^T, warn sprintf "Runtime %d min %d sec\n", $a/60, $a%60 } </code> 35318 35318