Throughput calculation using cycle count

Question

Is it possible to determine the throughput of an application on a processor from the cycle counts (Processor instruction cycles) consumed by the application ? If yes, how to calculate it ?

Answer 1

If the process is entirely CPU bound, then you divide the processor speed by the number of cycles to get the throughput.

In reality, few processes are entirely CPU bound though, in which case you have to take other factors (disk speed, memory speed, serialization, etc.) into account.

Answer 2

Simple:

#include <time.h>
clock_t c;
c = clock(); // c holds clock ticks value
c = c / CLOCKS_PER_SEC; // real time, if you need it

Note that the value you get is an approximation, for more info see the clock() man page.