CPU utilization during testing in Python?

Question

I want to get the cpu usage during testing for my ML model (during a call to predict). Here is currently what I am doing. p is the current process:

start = p.cpu_percent(interval=1)
y_hat = clf.predict(X_test)
print(abs(p.cpu_percent(interval=None) - start)) # prints cpu usage (%)

Is this the correct approach or is there a better way to achieve this?

Answer 1

Assuming you want to do this within your program with a builtin, Python's resource module might be of use to you here. psutil is a good option (as suggested by Federico) if you're able to install packages.

Outside your program, there are many ways to get CPU usage of an arbitrary process. If you're on *nux and prefer the command line, top and similar commands should do the job. On a graphical interface, I personally prefer KSysGuard (I'm on Kubuntu). Gnome System Monitor works as well. On Windows, the Task Manager should suffice.

EDIT: psutil seems to return global usages. If you only wanted the usage of your process you'd be better off with resource or os.times, but if you want total CPU utilization (including other processes) psutil is a more robust solution.

For CPU times in resource:

import resource

resource.getrusage()[0]  # Returns the time in seconds in user mode
# Note that this time accumulates while the program runs,
# so you might want to save its previous value each time you take a measurement

Answer 2

1. Using psutil is suggested to use psutil.virtual_memory().

   import psutil
   mem = psutil.virtual_memory()
   print(mem)
   svmem(total=10367352832, available=6472179712, percent=37.6, used=8186245120, free=2181107712, active=4748992512, inactive=2758115328, buffers=790724608, cached=3500347392, shared=787554304, slab=199348224)
   
   THRESHOLD = 100 * 1024 * 1024  # 100MB
   if mem.available <= THRESHOLD:
        print("warning")
   
   # you can convert that object to a dictionary 
   dict(psutil.virtual_memory()._asdict())
   

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2. psutil.cpu_times(percpu=False) Return system CPU times as a named tuple.

    import psutil
    print(psutil.cpu_times())
    #scputimes(user=17411.7, nice=77.99, system=3797.02, idle=51266.57, iowait=732.58,      irq=0.01, softirq=142.43, steal=0.0, guest=0.0, guest_nice=0.0)
   

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3. os.times() Returns the current global process times. The return value is an object with five attributes

   import os 
   
    curr_gp_times = os.times()      
    print(curr_gp_times) 
    # posix.times_result(user=0.03, system=0.01, children_user=0.0, children_system=0.0, elapsed=17370844.95)
   

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EDIT This may be closer to what you are looking for:

4. psutil.cpu_times(percpu=False) Return system CPU times as a named tuple. Every attribute represents the seconds the CPU has spent in the given mode.

   • user: time spent by normal processes executing in user mode; on Linux this also includes guest time

   • system: time spent by processes executing in kernel mode

   • idle: time spent doing nothing

       import psutil
       psutil.cpu_times()
       # scputimes(user=17411.7, nice=77.99, system=3797.02, idle=51266.57, iowait=732.58, irq=0.01, softirq=142.43, steal=0.0, guest=0.0, guest_nice=0.0)