Time out timer in Javascript

Time out timer

setTimeout() executes code after a specified amount of time.

  • setTimeout() method accepts two arguments:
  • the code to execute
  • the number of time (in milliseconds) to wait.

The first argument can be either a string containing JavaScript code or a function.

The following code runs an document.writeln after 1 second:


<!DOCTYPE HTML> 
<html> 
    <body> 
        <script type="text/javascript"> 
    setTimeout(function() { <!--  ww  w . j av a 2 s.  c o m-->
       document.writeln("Hello world!"); 
       }, 
      1000
    ); 
        </script> 
    </body> 
</html>

Click to view the demo

Stop a time out timer

setTimeout() returns a numeric ID for the timeout. The ID can be used to cancel the timeout. To cancel a pending timeout, use the clearTimeout() method and pass in the timeout ID:


<!DOCTYPE HTML> 
<html> 
    <body> 
        <script type="text/javascript"> 
            var timeoutId = setTimeout(function() { 
                document.writeln("Hello world!"); 
                }, 1000); <!--from ww w .j  a v  a  2 s.  c  om-->
            
            clearTimeout(timeoutId); 

        </script> 
    </body> 
</html>

Click to view the demo

Time out for a value

The following code set the timeout according to a value:


<!DOCTYPE HTML> 
<html> 
<body> 
<script type="text/javascript"> 
var num = 0; 
var max = 10; 
function incrementNumber() { <!--from ww w.  j  a  v a  2 s  .c  o  m-->
    document.writeln(num++);  
    //if the max has not been reached, 
    //set another timeout 
    if (num < max) { 
        setTimeout(incrementNumber, 500); 
    } else { 
        document.writeln("Done"); 
    } 
} 
setTimeout(incrementNumber, 500); 

</script> 
</body> 
</html>

Click to view the demo





















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