Benchmark wave access with *lots* of waves

/// @name Parameters for gnoise and enoise
///@{
Constant NOISE_GEN_LINEAR_CONGRUENTIAL = 1 ///< Don't use for new code.
Constant NOISE_GEN_MERSENNE_TWISTER    = 2
///@}

/// @brief Random shuffle of the wave contents
///
/// Function was taken from: http://www.igorexchange.com/node/1614
/// author s.r.chinn
///
/// @param inwave The wave that will have its rows shuffled.
/// @param noiseGenMode [optional, defaults to #NOISE_GEN_LINEAR_CONGRUENTIAL] type of RNG to use
Function InPlaceRandomShuffle(inwave, [noiseGenMode])
	wave inwave
	variable noiseGenMode

	variable i, j, emax, temp
	variable N = DimSize(inwave, 0)

	if(ParamIsDefault(noiseGenMode))
		noiseGenMode = NOISE_GEN_LINEAR_CONGRUENTIAL
	endif

	for(i = N; i>1; i-=1)
		emax = i / 2
		j =  floor(emax + enoise(emax))		//	random index
// 		emax + enoise(emax) ranges in random value from 0 to 2*emax = i
		temp		= inwave[j]
		inwave[j]	= inwave[i-1]
		inwave[i-1]	= temp
	endfor
end

Function/S MakeName(index)
	variable index

	string name
	sprintf name, "W_%010d", index

	return name
End

Function BenchmarkWaveAccess()

	KillDataFolder/Z root:

	variable numWaves = 1e5
	variable numTrials = 1e4
	variable numRuns = 1
	variable i, now, j, globalnow
	string name

	Make/O/N=(numWaves) timing = 0
	Make/O/N=(numWaves) indizes = p

	SetrandomSeed/BETR=1 1
	Inplacerandomshuffle(indizes, noiseGenMode=NOISE_GEN_MERSENNE_TWISTER)

	for(i = 0; i < numWaves; i += 1)
		Make/O/N=10000 $MakeName(i)
	endfor

	globalnow = stopmstimer(-2)
	for(i = 0; i < numTrials; i += 1)

		if(mod(i, numTrials*0.01) == 0)
			printf "%g\r" (i/numTrials) * 100
		endif

		now = stopmstimer(-2)
		for(j = 0; j < numRuns; j += 1)
			WAVE wv = $MakeName(indizes[i])
		endfor
		timing[indizes[i]] = (stopmstimer(-2) - now)/1e6/numRuns
	endfor
	printf "elapsed time %g\r", (stopmstimer(-2) - globalnow)/1e6/numRuns
End

Warning: Inspect the code before running it as it takes quite a bit of RAM.

After running BenchmarkWaveAccess() call Display timing.