Business
Jobs
  • About Us
  • Solutions
    • Job Postings
      Post your job and receive qualified candidates in 48h.
    • Candidate Assessments
      500+ technical and psychological tests, plus anti-fraud.
    • Headhunting
      Tailor-made executive search from start to finish.
    • Payroll + EOR
      Payroll dispersal and EOR across 15+ LATAM countries.
  • Pricing
  • Jobs

0

197
Views
Wait 5 seconds before executing next line

This function below doesn’t work like I want it to; being a JS novice I can’t figure out why.

I need it to wait 5 seconds before checking whether the newState is -1.

Currently, it doesn’t wait, it just checks straight away.

function stateChange(newState) {
  setTimeout('', 5000);

  if(newState == -1) {
    alert('VIDEO HAS STOPPED');
  }
}
over 4 years ago · Santiago Trujillo
3 answers
Answer question

0

You have to put your code in the callback function you supply to setTimeout:

function stateChange(newState) {
    setTimeout(function () {
        if (newState == -1) {
            alert('VIDEO HAS STOPPED');
        }
    }, 5000);
}

Any other code will execute immediately.

over 4 years ago · Santiago Trujillo Report

0

Browser

Here's a solution using the new async/await syntax.

Be sure to check browser support as this is a language feature introduced with ECMAScript 6.

Utility function:

const delay = ms => new Promise(res => setTimeout(res, ms));

Usage:

const yourFunction = async () => {
  await delay(5000);
  console.log("Waited 5s");

  await delay(5000);
  console.log("Waited an additional 5s");
};

The advantage of this approach is that it makes your code look and behave like synchronous code.

Node.js

Node.js 16 provides a built-in version of setTimeout that is promise-based so we don't have to create our own utility function:

import { setTimeout } from "timers/promises";

const yourFunction = async () => {
  await setTimeout(5000);
  console.log("Waited 5s");

  await setTimeout(5000);
  console.log("Waited an additional 5s");
};
over 4 years ago · Santiago Trujillo Report

0

You really shouldn't be doing this, the correct use of timeout is the right tool for the OP's problem and any other occasion where you just want to run something after a period of time. Joseph Silber has demonstrated that well in his answer. However, if in some non-production case you really want to hang the main thread for a period of time, this will do it.

function wait(ms){
   var start = new Date().getTime();
   var end = start;
   while(end < start + ms) {
     end = new Date().getTime();
  }
}

With execution in the form:

console.log('before');
wait(7000);  //7 seconds in milliseconds
console.log('after');

I've arrived here because I was building a simple test case for sequencing a mix of asynchronous operations around long-running blocking operations (i.e. expensive DOM manipulation) and this is my simulated blocking operation. It suits that job fine, so I thought I post it for anyone else who arrives here with a similar use case. Even so, it's creating a Date() object in a while loop, which might very overwhelm the GC if it runs long enough. But I can't emphasize enough, this is only suitable for testing, for building any actual functionality you should refer to Joseph Silber's answer.

over 4 years ago · Santiago Trujillo Report
Answer question
Find remote jobs

Discover the new way to find a job!

Top jobs
Top job categories
Business
Post vacancy Pricing Sales
Legal
Terms and conditions Privacy policy
© 2026 PeakU Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Andres GPT
Show me some job opportunities
There's an error!