Sleep in JavaScript - delay between actions

javascript sleep
Jin Yong picture Jin Yong · Apr 17, 2009 · Viewed 85.7k times · Source

Is there a way I can do a sleep in JavaScript before it carries out another action?

Example:

 var a = 1+3;
 // Sleep 3 seconds before the next action here
 var b = a + 4;

Answer

Steve Harrison picture Steve Harrison · Apr 17, 2009

You can use setTimeout to achieve a similar effect:

var a = 1 + 3;
var b;
setTimeout(function() {
    b = a + 4;
}, (3 * 1000));

This doesn't really 'sleep' JavaScript—it just executes the function passed to setTimeout after a certain duration (specified in milliseconds). Although it is possible to write a sleep function for JavaScript, it's best to use setTimeout if possible as it doesn't freeze everything during the sleep period.

Related questions

What is the JavaScript version of sleep()?

Is there a better way to engineer a sleep in JavaScript than the following pausecomp function (taken from here)? function pausecomp(millis) { var date = new Date(); var curDate = null; do { curDate = new Date(); } while(curDate-date < millis); } This is not …

Read More
JavaScript sleep/wait before continuing

I have a JavaScript code that I need to add a sleep/wait function to. The code I am running is already in a function, eg: function myFunction(time) { alert('time starts now'); //code to make the program wait before …

Read More
Is there a Sleep/Pause/Wait function in JavaScript?

Is there a JavaScript function that simulates the operation of the sleep function in PHP — a function that pauses code execution for x milliseconds, and then resumes where it left off? I found some things here on Stack Overflow, but …

Read More