[java] Measure execution time for a Java method

If you are currently writing the application, than the answer is to use System.currentTimeMillis or System.nanoTime serve the purpose as pointed by people above.

But if you have already written the code, and you don't want to change it its better to use Spring's method interceptors. So for instance your service is :

public class MyService { 
    public void doSomething() {
        for (int i = 1; i < 10000; i++) {
            System.out.println("i=" + i);
        }
    }
}

To avoid changing the service, you can write your own method interceptor:

public class ServiceMethodInterceptor implements MethodInterceptor {
    public Object invoke(MethodInvocation methodInvocation) throws Throwable {
        long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
        Object result = methodInvocation.proceed();
        long duration = System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime;
        Method method = methodInvocation.getMethod();
        String methodName = method.getDeclaringClass().getName() + "." + method.getName();
        System.out.println("Method '" + methodName + "' took " + duration + " milliseconds to run");
        return null;
    }
}

Also there are open source APIs available for Java, e.g. BTrace. or Netbeans profiler as suggested above by @bakkal and @Saikikos. Thanks.