How to measure the performance of a default copy constructor in C++

Question

I would like to know how much time my program is spending in the default copy constructor of a particular class. Is there a way to implement the copy constructor in a way that is identical to the way the default copy constructor would be implemented by the compiler, but with the addition of some instrumentation code that checks the current time before and after running the main body of the constructor?

Answer 1

Use gprof or another profiler. You can of course write your own timing loops, but the C++ compiler can optimise very aggressively, which makes things difficult. A proper profiler will tell you exactly where the program is spending its time.