Webmaster Forum / HTML, CSS, Scripts / JavaScript / February 2007

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FAQ Topic - How do I make a 10 second delay?
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There is no built-in way to pause execution in javascript such
as a sleep function, but hosts usually provide a method of some
form. Web browsers are designed for event driven programming and
only provide the « setTimeout » and « setInterval » functions
to facilitate timed delays. The delay before calling Snork will
generally exceed the second parameter to « setTimeout » and « setInterval »
due to implementation differences among browsers.

To call the function « Snork() », approx 10 seconds
after the function « Moomin() », you would do this:

Moomin()
setTimeout('Snork()',10000)

Script execution is not stopped, and adding « Snufkin() » after the
setTimeout line would immediately execute the function « Snufkin() »
before « Snork() »

Achieving delays through running a loop of some sort for a
pre-defined period is a bad strategy, as that will tend to
put CPU use up to 100% and inhibit whatever was supposed to
be happening during the delay.

Other (less event driven) hosts have different wait functions,
such as « WScript.Sleep() » in the Windows Script Host.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/dhtml/reference/methods/setTimeout.asp

http://docs.sun.com/source/816-6408-10/window.htm#1203758

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event-driven_programming

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