I am trying to figure out why in my Code section, this.sleep(5000) seems to be getting called before my draw function, because it doesn't get drawn to the canvas until after sleep is done. any insights on why this isn't working the way I want it to?
Sleep function:
sleep: function(milliseconds) {
setTimeout(function(){
var start = new Date().getTime();
while ((new Date().getTime() - start) < milliseconds){
// Do nothing
}
},0);
},
Code:
var g = new Graph(this.diagram);
g.DrawPolygons(ctx,"blue");
this.sleep(5000);
Short answer
Don't do it this way. Even if you get it to work, it will be inconsistent, will cause you many problems, and is almost globally considered bad practice.
Long answer
JavaScript runtimes are almost always designed to be asynchronous. Your while loop is intended to make everything... wait. You cannot (or at least shouldn't) do that in most JavaScript environments.
Instead, schedule events/functions to be executed some number of ms in the future. This is what setTimeout is for. This removes the need for a sleep function.
Here's what your code might look like after the changes described above are applied:
var g = new Graph(this.diagram);
g.DrawPolygons(ctx, "blue");
setTimeout(function() {
g.DrawPolygons(ctx, "red"); // Or whatever
setTimeout(function() {
g.DrawPolygons(ctx, "yellow"); // Or whatever
// etc..
}, 5000);
}, 5000);
ES2015 update - using promises
To avoid potential deeply nested setTimeouts, you can use this
const sleep ms = new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve,ms));
which is simply a promise that resolves in ms milliseconds. This allows you to keep everything in one block:
var g = new Graph(this.diagram);
g.DrawPolygons(ctx, "blue");
(async () => {
g.DrawPolygons(ctx, "red");
await sleep(5000);
g.DrawPolygons(ctx, "yellow");
await sleep(5000);
// ...
})()
Note two things:
Under the hood, there are still events/callback. It looks like C's or Python's sleep but behave very differently.
You can only use this inside asynchronous functions. See here for more information.
There are several problems with the code you've posted. First off, you should never use a while loop to halt code execution.
Secondly, you're setting a timeout, which allows other code to be executed in the interim (yes, even if the timeout is zero seconds). Remove that and you should be able to pause execution (BUT DON'T DO THIS):
sleep: function(milliseconds) {
var start = new Date().getTime();
while ((new Date().getTime() - start) < milliseconds){
// Do nothing
}
},
However, occupying the JS thread means that other browser operations (redraws, etc) will be halted until your sleep function exits. Just having this code in your JS file is an antipattern, you'd be better off finding a different way to solve your problem. Read up on the XY problem and ask a new question.
In case all you wanted to do was execute some code after a certain interval without blocking everything else, setTimeout is all you need.
sleep: function(ms, funcToExecute) {
setTimeout(funcToExecute, ms);
},
(Though at this point, sleep is redundant)
This is happening because of how JavaScript's setTimeout works. When you do:
setTimeout(function(){}, 0)
You are not actually telling it to run the function after 0ms (the lowest value is actually 4ms, but that's besides the point). You are telling it to run the function in the future. What it actually does is put the function at "the end of the stack". It'll finish running the function that called it, and maybe even run some UI redraws before it runs the timeout.
If this code is ran in a loop, your timeouts will not run at all when you think they will ;)
Also, remember JavaScript is single threaded. One thread runs your code as well as the UI redraws. Doing a while loop that does nothing and waits for 5 seconds will lock up the browser. It will prevent any user interaction and UI redraws. It might even make the OS think the browser crashed. DO NOT DO THIS!
Instead, try setting a timeout to run the next polygon after 5000ms:
var g = new Graph(this.diagram);
g.DrawPolygons(ctx,"blue");
setTimeout(function(){
// Code to run after the "sleep"
// Maybe another shape
g.DrawPolygons(ctx, "red");
}, 5000);
Related
I'm new to Node.js. Is there something I need to do to get setTimeout() to work?
Here's a code snippet.
async code that sets appMsg.doneLoadTables = true when done
do {
console.log('waiting ... ' + appMsg.doneLoadTables);
setTimeout(function() { console.log('waiting ...'); }, 1000);
} while (!appMsg.doneLoadTables);
Symptoms:
(While the two calls to console.log are similar, only the first prints the value of appMsg.doneLoadTables.) Every result includes that value.
The spacing between calls to console.log is much closer than 1000 msec. (I suspect the spacing is as fast as the computer can process the loop shown here.)
While I would hope the async routines could continue to process during the delays I intended here, I've never seen this loop finish; it's as if the loop takes all processing resources and prevents the async routines from finishing their work and from setting the variable that'll end this loop.
I had this experience with Node 4.2.1; I continue to have this experience after installing Node 5.0.0.
I've seen that similar questions about setTimeout() have been asked here many times before. I hope my use of a IIFE inside setTimeout() makes this question distinct from all of those.
Thanks in advance for any help offered ...
JavaScript is single-threaded. setTimeout is not a form of sleep which pauses code at that line. It works by "scheduling" your callback for later, and execute it when the stack exhausts (the engine doing nothing) and is at least n milliseconds later, where n is the delay you placed in milliseconds.
Now your code doesn't work because it never exits the loop. The code doesn't get the chance to execute other code (the code you hope to run and change appMsg.doneLoadTables's value). All it does keep logging "waiting... [something]".
Essentially you are polling. What you could use instead is setInterval. When appMsg.doneLoadTables is true, you stop the polling by using clearInterval.
I am not 100% sure what is your goal ... however maybe this snippet takes you where you want to go (I opted for setTimeout instead of setInterval):
var appMsg = {doneLoadTables: false};
var stillLoading = function() {
if(false === appMsg.doneLoadTables) {
console.log('waiting ... ' + appMsg.doneLoadTables);
setTimeout(stillLoading, 50);
}
else {
console.log('Loading complete.');
process.exit();
}
}
stillLoading();
setTimeout(function(){
console.log('Setting appMsg.doneLoadTables = true');
appMsg.doneLoadTables = true;
}, 1000);
The script polls status every 50ms and marks "done" exactly after 1 second.
The output looks like this
waiting ... false
waiting ... false
waiting ... false
waiting ... false
...
Setting appMsg.doneLoadTables = true
Loading complete.
(While the two calls to console.log are similar, only the first prints the value of appMsg.doneLoadTables.) Every result includes that value.
That is the correct behavior since you never exit the while loop. You stay in the same event frame that keeps looping forever.
The spacing between calls to console.log is much closer than 1000 msec. (I suspect the spacing is as fast as the computer can process the loop shown here.)
That is the correct behavior again because you callbacks that you passed to setTimeout will never execute unless you exit the do-while loop, which you never do. So you just keep calling first console.log statement then you add a callback to event loop to execute in 1000 ms without ever giving it (the callback that you pass) the chance to execute.
While I would hope the async routines could continue to process during the delays I intended here, I've never seen this loop finish; it's as if the loop takes all processing resources and prevents the async routines from finishing their work and from setting the variable that'll end this loop.
The loop never finish because it doesn't have logic implemented that finishes it. "Async routines" can't continue because that would require exiting the current event frame (that runs infinite loop) and starting the next one that has you callback that you passed to setTimeout.
Hope my explanations will help you to understand how asynchronous JavaScript works.
I have read from multiple places that setTimeout() is preferable to setInterval() when setting something up to basically run forever. The code below works fine but after about an hour of running Firefox (38.0.1) throws an error of too much recursion.
Essentially I have it grabbing a very small amount of text from counts.php and updating a table with that information. The whole call and return takes about 50ms according to the inspectors. I'm trying to have it do this every x seconds as directed by t.
I suspect if I switch to setInterval() this would probably work, but I wasn't sure what the current state of the setTimeout() vs setInterval() mindset is as everything I've been finding is about 3-5 years old.
$(document).ready(function() {
t = 3000;
$.ajaxSetup({cache: false});
function countsTimer(t) {
setTimeout(function () {
$.getJSON("counts.php", function (r) {
$(".count").each(function(i,v) {
if ($(this).html() != r[i]) {
$(this).fadeOut(function () {
$(this)
.css("color", ($(this).html() < r[i]) ? "green" : "red")
.html(r[i])
.fadeIn()
.animate({color: '#585858'}, 10000);
})
};
});
t = $(".selected").html().slice(0,-1) * ($(".selected").html().slice(-1) == "s" ? 1000 : 60000);
countsTimer(t);
});
}, t);
};
countsTimer(t);
});
Update: This issue was resolved by adding the .stop(true, true) before the .fadeOut() animation. This issue only occurred in Firefox as testing in other browsers didn't cause any issues. I have marked the answer as correct in spite of it not being the solution in this particular case but rather it offers a good explanation in a more general sense.
You should indeed switch to setInterval() in this case. The problem with setInterval() is that you either have to keep a reference if you ever want to clear the timeout and in case the operation (possibly) takes longer to perform than the timeout itself the operation could be running twice.
For example if you have a function running every 1s using setInterval, however the function itself takes 2s to complete due to a slow XHR request, that function will be running twice at the same time at some point. This is often undesirable. By using setTimout and calling that at the end of the original function the function never overlaps and the timeout you set is always the time between two function calls.
However, in your case you have a long-running application it seems, because your function runs every 3 seconds, the function call stack will increase by one every three seconds. This cannot be avoided unless you break this recursion loop. For example, you could only do the request when receiving a browser event like click on the document and checking for the time.
(function()
{
var lastCheck = Date.now(), alreadyRunning = false;
document.addEventListener
(
"click",
function()
{
if(!alreadyRunning && Date.now() - lastCheck > 3000)
{
alreadyRunning = true;
/* Do your request here! */
//Code below should run after your request has finished
lastCheck = Date.now();
alreadyRunning = false;
}
}
)
}());
This doesn't have the drawback setInterval does, because you always check if the code is already running, however the check only runs when receiving a browser event. (Which is normally not a problem.) And this method causes a lot more boilerplate.
So if you're sure the XHR request won't take longer than 3s to complete, just use setInterval().
Edit: Answer above is wrong in some aspects
As pointed out in the comments, setTimeout() does indeed not increase the call stack size, since it returns before the function in the timeout is called. Also the function in the question does not contain any specific recursion. I'll keep this answer because part of the question are about setTimeout() vs setInterval(). However, the problem causing the recursion error will probably be in some other piece of code since there is not function calling itself, directly or indirectly, anywhere in the sample code.
Knowing that while Node.js is working asynchronously, writing something like this:
function sleep() {
var stop = new Date().getTime();
while(new Date().getTime < stop + 15000) {
;
}
}
sleep();
console.log("done");
...would call the sleep(), block the server for the duration of the while loop (15secs) and just THEN print "done" to the console. As far as I understand, this is because Node.js is giving JavaScript only access to the main thread, and therefore this kidn of thing would halt further execution.
So I understand the solution to this is to use callbacks:
function sleep(callback) {
var stop = new Date().getTime();
while(new Date().getTime() < stop + 15000) {
;
}
callback();
}
sleep(function() {
console.log("done sleeping");
});
console.log("DONE");
So I thought this would print 'DONE' and after 15 secs. 'done sleeping', since the sleep() function gets called and is handed a pointer to a callback function. While this function is working (the while loop), the last line would be executed (print 'done'). After 15 seconds, when the sleep() function finishes, it calls the given callback function, which then prints 'done sleeping'.
Apparently I understood something wrong here, because both of the above ways block. Can anybody clarify please?
Thanks in advance,
Slagjoeyoco
Javascript and node.js are single threaded, which means a simple while blocks; no requests/events can be processed until the while block is done. Callbacks don't magically solve this problem, they just help pass custom code to a function. Instead, iterate using process.nextTick, which will give you esentially the same results but leaves space for requests and events to be processed as well, ie, it doesn't block:
function doSleep(callback) {
var stop = new Date().getTime();
process.nextTick(function() {
if(new Date().getTime() < stop + 15000) {
//Done, run callback
if(typeof callback == "function") {
callback();
}
} else {
//Not done, keep looping
process.nextTick(arguments.callee);
}
});
}
doSleep(function() {
console.log("done sleeping");
console.log("DONE");
});
You are calling sleep right away, and the new sleep function blocks. It keeps iterating until the condition is met. You should use setTimeout() to avoid blocking:
setTimeout(function () {
console.log('done sleeping');
}, 15000);
Callbacks aren't the same thing as asynchronicity, they're just helpful when you want to get a... callback... from an asynchronous operation. In your case, the method still executes synchronously; Node doesn't just magically detect that there's a callback and long-running operation, and make it return ahead of time.
The real solution is to use setTimeout instead of a busy loop on another thread.
As already mentioned, asynchronous execution should be achieved by setTimeout() rather than while, because while will freeze in one "execution frame".
Also it seems you have syntax error in your example.
This one works fine: http://jsfiddle.net/6TP76/
Why there no such function in javascript that sets a timeout for its continuation, saves the necessary state (the scope object and the execution point), terminates the script and gives the control back to the browser? After the timeout expires the browser would load back the execution context and continues the script, and we would have a real non browser blocking sleep functionality that would work even if the JS engine is single threaded.
Why there is still no such functionality in javascript? Why do we have to still slice our code into functions and set the timeouts to the next step to achieve the sleep effect?
I think 'sleep'ing is something you do not want in your browser.
First of all it might be not clear what has to happen and how a browser should behave when you actually sleep.
Is the complete Script runtime sleeping? Normally it should because you only have one thread running your code. So what happens if other events oocur during sleep? they would block, and as soon execution continues all blocked events would fire. That will cause an odd behaviour as you might imagine (for instance mouse click events which are fired some time, maybe seconds, after the actual click). Or these events had to be ignored, which will lead to a loss of information.
What will happen to your browser? Shall it wait for sleep if the user clicks a (e.g. close window) button? I think not, but this might actually call javascript code again (unload) which will not be able to be called since program execution is sleeping.
On a second thought sleep is a sign of poor program design. Actually a program/function/you name it has a certain task, which shall be completed as soon as possible. Sometimes you have to wait for a result (for instance you wait for an XHR to complete) and you want to continue program execution meanwhile. In this case you can and should use asynchronous calls. This results in two advantages:
The speed of all scripts is enhanced (no blocking of other scripts due to sleep)
The code is executed exactly when it should and not before or after a certain event (which might lead to other problems like deadlocks if two functions check for the same condition ...)
... which leads to another problem: Imagine two or more pieces of code would call sleep. They would hinder themselves if they try to sleep at the same, maybe unnecessarily. This would cause a lot of trouble when you like to debug, maybe you even have difficulties in ensuring which function sleeps first, because you might control this behavior somehow.
Well I think that it is one of the good parts of Javascript, that sleep does not exist. However it might be interesting how multithreaded javascripts could perform in a browser ;)
javascript is desgined for single process single thread runtime, and browser also puts UI rendering in this thread, so if you sleep the thread, UI rendering such as gif animation and element's event will also be blocked, the browser will be in "not responding" state.
Maybe a combination of setTimeout and yield would work for your needs?
What's the yield keyword in JavaScript?
You could keep local function scope while letting the browser keep going about its work.
Of course that is only in Mozilla at the moment?
Because "sleep()" in JavaScript would make for a potentially horrible user experience, by freezing the web browser and make it unresponsive.
What you want is a combination of yield and Deferreds (from jquery for example).
It's called sometimes pseudoThreads, Light Threading or Green Threads. And you can do exactly what you want with them in javascript > 1.7 . And here is how:
You'll need first to include this code:
$$ = function (generator) {
var d = $.Deferred();
var iter;
var recall = function() {
try {var def = iter.send.apply(iter, arguments);} catch(e) {
if (e instanceof StopIteration) {d.resolve(); return;}
if (e instanceof ReturnValueException) {
d.resolve(e.retval); return
};
throw e;
};
$.when(def).then(recall); // close the loop !
};
return function(arguments) {
iter = generator.apply(generator, arguments);
var def = iter.next(); // init iterator
$.when(def).then(recall); // loop in all yields
return d.promise(); // return a deferred
}
}
ReturnValueException = function (r) {this.retval = r; return this; };
Return = function (retval) {throw new ReturnValueException(retval);};
And of course call jquery code to get the $ JQuery acces (for Deferreds).
Then you'll be able to define once for all a Sleep function:
function Sleep(time) {
var def = $.Deferred();
setTimeout(function() {def.resolve();}, time);
return def.promise();
}
And use it (along with other function that could take sometime):
// Sample function that take 3 seconds to execute
fakeAjaxCall = $$(function () {
yield (Sleep(3000));
Return("AJAX OK");
});
And there's a fully featured demo function:
function log(msg) {$('<div>'+msg+'</div>').appendTo($("#log")); }
demoFunction = $$(function (arg1, arg2) {
var args = [].splice.call(arguments,0);
log("Launched, arguments: " + args.join(", "));
log("before sleep for 3secs...");
yield (Sleep(3000));
log("after sleep for 3secs.");
log("before call of fake AjaxCall...");
ajaxAnswer = yield (fakeAjaxCall());
log("after call of fake AjaxCall, answer:" + ajaxAnswer);
// You cannot use return, You'll have to use this special return
// function to return a value
log("returning 'OK'.");
Return("OK");
log("should not see this.");
});
As you can see, syntax is a little bit different:
Remember:
any function that should have these features should be wrapped in $$(myFunc)
$$ will catch any yielded value from your function and resume it only when
the yielded value has finished to be calculted. If it's not a defered, it'll work
also.
Use 'Return' to return a value.
This will work only with Javascript 1.7 (which is supported in newer firefox version)
It sounds like what you're looking for here is a way to write asynchronous code in a way that looks synchronous. Well, by using Promises and asynchronous functions in the new ECMAscript 7 standard (an upcoming version of JavaScript), you actually can do that:
// First we define our "sleep" function...
function sleep(milliseconds) {
// Immediately return a promise that resolves after the
// specified number of milliseconds.
return new Promise(function(resolve, _) {
setTimeout(resolve, milliseconds);
});
}
// Now, we can use sleep inside functions declared as asynchronous
// in a way that looks like a synchronous sleep.
async function helloAfter(seconds) {
console.log("Sleeping " + seconds + " seconds.");
await sleep(seconds * 1000); // Note the use of await
console.log("Hello, world!");
}
helloAfter(1);
console.log("Script finished executing.");
Output:
Sleeping 1 seconds.
Script finished executing.
Hello, world!
(Try in Babel)
As you may have noticed from the output, this doesn't work quite the same way that sleep does in most languages. Rather than block execution until the sleep time expires, our sleep function immediately returns a Promise object which resolves after the specified number of seconds.
Our helloAfter function is also declared as async, which causes it to behave similarly. Rather than block until its body finishes executing, helloAfter returns a Promise immediately when it is called. This is why "Script finished executing." gets printed before "Hello, world!".
Declaring helloAfter as async also allows the use of the await syntax inside of it. This is where things get interesting. await sleep(seconds * 1000); causes the helloAfter function to wait for the Promise returned by sleep to be resolved before continuing. This is effectively what you were looking for: a seemingly synchronous sleep within the context of the asynchronous helloAfter function. Once the sleep resolves, helloAfter continues executing, printing "Hello, world!" and then resolving its own Promise.
For more information on async/await, check out the draft of the async functions standard for ES7.
I know this is bad:
function sleep(millis) {
var date = new Date();
var curDate = null;
do { curDate = new Date();
} while(curDate-date < millis);
}
EDIT:
function doSomethingQuickly(pixelData) {
// loads an external image, filling the entire screen
// overlays $pixelsData over image
}
But I really do need this sort of functionality since doSomethingQuickly() returns so fast and the other doSomethingQuickly()'s cannot be allowed to run until the previous is finished. It would be disastrous to simply fire them all off and wait for results to deal with them.
doSomethingQuicky();
sleep(500);
doSomethingQuicky();
sleep(500);
doSomethingQuicky();
sleep(500);
doSomethingQuicky();
sleep(500);
doSomethingQuicky();
sleep(500);
My question is that since simulating sleep in JS is bad, how can I achieve the same using setTimeout() or another more acceptable method
NOTE: this is not in a web browser
EDIT:
You can see that if it ran 5 times without the sleep, it would quickly show the final image, when what it should do is 1) show an image 2) pause for 5 seconds 3) repeatYou can see that if it ran 5 times without the sleep, it would quickly show the final images, when what it should do is 1) show an image 2) pause for 5 seconds 3) repeat
How about:
function sleep(ms,callback){
setTimeout(callback,ms);
}
//basic usage
while (someStoppingcondition){
sleep(500,doSomethingQuicky);
}
if doSomethingQuicky is always the same function, setInterval (see other answers) is sufficient. Make sure it will not run forever, use clear[Interval/Timeout] to stop the timers.
if your problem is that one function has to complete before the next one executes, this may be a way to solve it:
function firstRunner(arg1,arg2,/* ... argx*/, nextRunner){
//do things
//after things are done, run nextRunner
nextRunner();
}
JavaScript is single-threaded. Any series of doSomethingQuicky(); should execute sequentially.
That is unless you're using some timer functions within doSomethingQuicky();. Without knowing what this function does, it's hard to advise.
var interval = setInterval(doSomethingQuickly, 500)
...
clearInterval(interval);
I don't know what the code is doing. JavaScript is single threaded so you shouldn't hit any problems. You also shouldn't sleep as it sleeps the only thread.
Using sleeps to wait for a function to return is always a bad idea. What if the slow function takes more time than predicted? What about time performance issues regarding the time spent idling?
Use promises instead:
// resolves immediatly to the string 'fast done'
const fast = new Promise(resolve => resolve('fast done'));
// resolves after 1 second to the string 'slow done'
const slow = new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(() => resolve('slow done'), 1000));
// resolves after 1 second to the array ['fast done', 'slow done'], then logs it for demo purposes
Promise.all([fast, slow]).then(console.log);
I think that Promise.all is exaclty what you're looking for. It resolves when all the promises that it gets as argument resolve, so you can pass it several functions with different execution time, and continue the code when all the functions have returned.