From the Benchmark docs for the new method:

         use Benchmark;
         $t0 = new Benchmark;
         # ... your code here ...
         $t1 = new Benchmark;
         $td = timediff($t1, $t0);
         print "the code took:",timestr($td),"\n";
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Update: A cheap example to help qball with his questions:

use strict;
use Benchmark;

print "Starting...";
my $t0 = new Benchmark;

# ... your code here ...
sleep(3);

my $t1 = new Benchmark;
my $td = timediff($t1, $t0);

print 'the code took:',timestr($td),"\n";
my $sec = timestr($td)+0;
print "that's ",timestr($td)+0," seconds\n";
my $min = int($sec/60);
$sec = $sec - $min*60;
printf ("also known as %d:%02d", $min, $sec);
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--
I'd like to be able to assign to an luser