How to loop a function for a certain duration in JS

Question

I have read on w3schools:

The setInterval() method will wait a specified number of milliseconds, and then execute a specified function, and it will continue to execute the function, once at every given time-interval.
The setTimeout() method will wait the specified number of milliseconds, and then execute the specified function.

I tried them both. However, that is not what I need.

I want a function that will loop continuously until the time duration is reached.

Is there a workaround on this? Thanks!

xdazz · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-18 06:58:04Z

3

var start = new Date();
var timer_id = setInterval(function() {
  // the duration is 10 seconds
  if (new Date() - start > 10000) {
     clearInterval(timer_id);
  } else {
     your_function();
  }
}, 1000); // every 1 second your function will run, you could change it by your needs.

answered Mar 18, 2014 at 6:58

xdazz

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kamilkp · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-18 06:58:42Z

2

You can do this without any setTimeouts or setIntervals:

var t1 = new Date().getTime();
var interval = 100;
while(new Date().getTime() - t1 < interval){
    // do stuff;
}

This will loop continuously for 100 ms.

answered Mar 18, 2014 at 6:58

kamilkp

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3 Comments

Erik E. Lorenz Over a year ago

Since there's no sleep function, this loop will take all your CPU. Also, other timeouts won't fire in some JavaScript engines, because they're single threaded and require the outer function to return before firing timeouts and intervals. See the solution by xdazz

Jeongbebs Over a year ago

so the answer of xDazz is better?

kamilkp Over a year ago

Well the OP stated that he wanted the function to "loop continuously", so I deliberately suggested a solution when virtually nothing else would be executed whilst this function is looping.

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