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');
  }
}

Solution 1:

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.

Solution 2:

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.

Solution 3:

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.

Solution 4:

If you're in an async function you can simply do it in one line:

console.log(1);
await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, 3000)); // 3 sec
console.log(2);

FYI, if target is NodeJS you can use this if you want (it's a predefined promisified setTimeout function):

await setTimeout[Object.getOwnPropertySymbols(setTimeout)[0]](3000) // 3 sec

Solution 5:

Use a delay function like this:

var delay = ( function() {
    var timer = 0;
    return function(callback, ms) {
        clearTimeout (timer);
        timer = setTimeout(callback, ms);
    };
})();

Usage:

delay(function(){
    // do stuff
}, 5000 ); // end delay

Credits: How to delay the .keyup() handler until the user stops typing?