Current Time Utility

Purpose

The Current Time Utility subtopic addresses the need for a consistent and easily testable method to obtain the current epoch time within the timing module. Instead of directly invoking the system time function across the codebase, this utility abstracts the retrieval of the current time into a single function. This approach supports:

Uniform time acquisition: Centralizes time fetching logic, ensuring consistency.
Testability: Simplifies mocking or overriding in tests, enabling reliable timing tests without dependence on actual system time.
Maintainability: Facilitates future enhancements or replacements of the underlying time source without widespread code changes.

By isolating the current time retrieval, this subtopic complements the more complex timing operations handled by the [Timer Operations](/78813) subtopic, which manages start, stop, and elapsed time computations.

Functionality

At the core, the subtopic provides a single function:

def now_ts() -> float:
    """Return the current epoch time in seconds as a float."""
    return time.time()

This function acts as a lightweight wrapper around time.time().
It returns the current timestamp with fractional seconds, enabling millisecond precision timing.
The TaskTimer class leverages this function internally when starting, stopping, or calculating elapsed time, ensuring all time measurements originate from the same source.

Integration with `TaskTimer`

Within the TaskTimer class, now_ts() is invoked at key points:

Starting the timer: Records the start timestamp.
Stopping the timer: Records the stop timestamp.
Calculating elapsed time: Uses the current time if the timer is running to compute elapsed milliseconds.

Example interaction snippet:

def start(self) -> "TaskTimer":
    if not self._running:
        self.started_at = now_ts()
        self._running = True
    return self

def stop(self) -> "TaskTimer":
    if self._running:
        self.stopped_at = now_ts()
        self._running = False
    return self

@property
def elapsed_ms(self) -> int:
    if self.started_at is None:
        return 0
    end = now_ts() if self._running and self.stopped_at is None else self.stopped_at or self.started_at
    return int((end - self.started_at) * 1000)

This design ensures that all timing measurements rely on the same consistent time source, improving accuracy and simplifying testing.

Integration

This utility integrates seamlessly with the [Timer Operations](/78813) subtopic by serving as the foundational time provider. Because it abstracts system time access, it also enables the testing framework to replace now_ts() during test runs, allowing validation of timing logic under controlled time conditions without depending on real elapsed time.

By isolating time retrieval, it supports the project's goal of reliable and precise timing, while maintaining minimal code complexity and dependencies. It also indirectly supports examples and demonstrations found in the [Timer Usage Demo](/78813) subtopic, which rely on accurate and consistent time measurements to showcase timer behavior.

Diagram