I would like to tell how long it takes a piece of code I've written to
execute.  I thought class <Date> might help me with that, so to test
that I wrote the following snippet of code:

    import java.util.Date;

    public class Loop
    {
      public static void main ( String[] arguments)
      {
        Date time;
        long start, loops, lp;

        if (arguments.length == 1)
        { loops = 1000000 * Long.parseLong( arguments[ 0]);
          time  = new Date();
          start = time.getTime();
          for (lp = 0; lp < loops; lp++);
          System.out.println
            ( loops + " loops last " + (time.getTime() - start)
                    + " milliseconds.");
        }
        else
        { System.out.println
            ( "Usage is\n  java Loop <millions-of-loops>");
        }
      }
    }

But apparently once I initialize <time> using the <Date()> construc-
tor, its <getTime()> method always returns the same value, so I always
get zero printed out.

Now I'm guessing that if I created two <Date> objects with that con-
structor, one before the loop and one after, then I'd get the number
of milliseconds I want.  Is that the only way to time my loop's opera-
tion, or am I missing something?

                               ---Kevin Simonson

"You'll never get to heaven, or even to LA,
if you don't believe there's a way."
from _Why Not_