In
computer performance, the
instruction path length is the number of
machine code instructions required to execute a section of a
computer program. The total path length for the entire program could be deemed a measure of the
algorithm's performance on a particular
computer hardware. The path length of a simple conditional instruction would normally be considered as equal to 2, one instruction to perform the comparison and another to take a branch if the particular condition is satisfied. The length of time to execute each instruction is not normally considered in determining path length and so path length is merely an indication of relative performance rather than in any sense absolute.