setTimeout or setInterval?

by

They essentially try to do the same thing, but the setInterval approach will be more accurate than the setTimeout approach, since setTimeout waits 1000ms, runs the function and then sets another timeout. So the wait period is actually a bit more than 1000ms (or a lot more if your function takes a long time to execute).

Although one might think that setInterval will execute exactly every 1000ms, it is important to note that setInterval will also delay, since JavaScript isn’t a multi-threaded language, which means that – if there are other parts of the script running – the interval will have to wait for that to finish.

In this Fiddle, you can clearly see that the timeout will fall behind, while the interval is almost all the time at almost 1 call/second (which the script is trying to do). If you change the speed variable at the top to something small like 20 (meaning it will try to run 50 times per second), the interval will never quite reach an average of 50 iterations per second.

The delay is almost always negligible, but if you’re programming something really precise, you should go for a self-adjusting timer (which essentially is a timeout-based timer that constantly adjusts itself for the delay it’s created)

More Related Contents:

  1. How would I make a Timer which times things in 0.75 seconds Javascript?
  2. Stop setInterval call in JavaScript
  3. Calling a function every 60 seconds
  4. Javascript setInterval and `this` solution
  5. Execute the setInterval function without delay the first time
  6. Stop setInterval
  7. Pass parameters in setInterval function
  8. Jquery/Ajax call with timer
  9. How can I pause setInterval() functions?
  10. Will setInterval drift?
  11. Calculating Page Load Time In JavaScript
  12. JavaScript setTimeout() won’t wait to Execute? [duplicate]
  13. Viewing all the timeouts/intervals in javascript?
  14. How to make `setInterval` behave more in sync, or how to use `setTimeout` instead?
  15. setInterval timing slowly drifts away from staying accurate
  16. How do I reset the setInterval timer?
  17. How to stop “setInterval” [duplicate]
  18. How to use setInterval function within for loop
  19. setInterval() behaviour with 0 milliseconds in JavaScript
  20. Is setInterval CPU intensive?
  21. Will setInterval cause browsers to hang?
  22. Using setInterval() to do simplistic continuous polling
  23. How to setInterval for every 5 second render with React hook useEffect in React Native app?
  24. function in setInterval() executes without delay
  25. setInterval() only running function once
  26. Javascript setInterval not working
  27. Does JavaScript setInterval() method cause memory leak?
  28. recursive function vs setInterval vs setTimeout javascript
  29. Making a live clock in javascript
  30. How do I correctly use setInterval and clearInterval to switch between two different functions?

Leave a Comment