Determine How Long Your ColdFusion Page Has Been Running Using GetPageContext()
The other day, I discovered how to get the date/time at which your ColdFusion page started running. Before I had found this, I had contemplated using a GetTickCount() at the beginning of my page run to mark this time. But, this method is ganky and requires updates to more than one file. By reaching into the Page Context, I am able to grab the start date/time value of the page without having to modify any other templates:
<!---
Use the page and fusion context objects to get the
date/time stamp at which this page started processing.
Then, get the number of seconds that that start date is
smaller than the current date/time stamp value.
--->
<cfset intRunTimeInSeconds = DateDiff(
"s",
GetPageContext().GetFusionContext().GetStartTime(),
Now()
) />
<!---
Output the number of seconds in which the page has
been processing.
--->
<p>
Page has been processing for:
#intRunTimeInSeconds# Seconds
</p>
Running the above, I get the output:
Page has been processing for: 0 Seconds
Zero seconds; not surprising considering the page has what amounts to like three lines of code on it. While this might seem completely insignificant, this is a very cool thing to know. I will go into that a bit more next.
Want to use code from this post? Check out the license.
Reader Comments
You should consider filing a request for this to be added to the language (I mean a shortcuz function). I can see it being useful.
Yeah, if we have GetTickCount(), maybe something like GetElapsedTickCount() or GetPageTickCount() would be very nice.
Hi Ben,
Any idea why i get this error?
"The selected method getFusionContext was not found. Either there are no methods with the specified method name and argument types, or the method getFusionContext is overloaded with arguments types that ColdFusion can't decipher reliably. If this is a Java object and you verified that the method exists, you may need to use the javacast function to reduce ambiguity. "
I tried javacast and still same error occurs.
@truthseeker,
That is odd because the function GetFusionContext() doesn't take any methods. What version of ColdFusion are you running?
@Ben,
I'm using 6.1. Hmm... Could this be a version issue? Haven't tested it in later versions, though. 'Coz the development is still running in 6.1.
@truthseeker,
To be honest, I wouldn't even know what to tell you. It is possible that the underlying mechanisms behind GetPageContext() changed going into MX7 (what we use in production).
guess i'll just have to stick with GetTickCount() for now :)
I noticed this does not work within onRequestEnd(). I always get 0 despite loading rather bulky pages. Appears not to work inside onRequest either, surely there's a way to use this within Application.cfc.
@Drew,
That is odd. I know I have used this approach inside of Application.cfc.
@Ben,
I'll have to double-check when I am in front of my work computer.
Place the code at the bottom of your page. I had it on top and it didn't work. It kept give me 0 (zero) return. Once I placed it on the bottom it came up with the correct processing time.
Side note
Ben thanks for all your hard work. I pray the day I have your brain because my job would be 100% easier.
@Fermin,
PS I'm running CF9
I'm sure this has been considered but why not just write the now() to a session then a flush and another one at the end of the page and then do a date/time compare? Then you can even do an isdefined to see the original load time of the page even if someone reloads.
What I'm trying to do is write when someone leaves a page. I'm experimenting with some javascript that will execute a cf page when leaving to try to figure out how long a visitor stays without doing it through the server logs. Any ideas for that?