Access values from dynamic array via another function

Question

I have a function that sets bunch of setTimeout functions. All functions are added to Array funcs; nevertheless, when I try to stop them using stopplay().clearTimeout the array has no values.

How to access those functions and clearTimeout on them?

var funcs = new Array();    

function playWithDelay(){   
    for (var i = 0; i < PlayDatesArray.length; i++) { 
        funcs[i] = createfunc(i); 
    } 

    for (var j = 0; j < PlayDatesArray.length; j++) { 
        funcs[j]();
    } 
}

function createfunc(i) { 
    return function() {        
        setTimeout(function(){            
        //my function
      }, i*1500);        
    }; 
}

function stopplay(){    
    alert(this.funcs.count);
    for (var i = 0; i< funcs.count; i++){ 
        //things I tried
        var tmpFunction = funcs[i]; 
        //funcs[i].splice(i, 1);
        clearTimeout(tmpFunction);
        clearTimeout(funcs[i]);
        funcs[i]=tmpFunction;
    }    
}

Sean Kinsey · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-24 00:21:48Z

3

clearTimeout takes the id returned by setTimeout, not a reference to the function itself.

So what you want is (in ES5 code)

var timeouts = [];

function createfunc(i) { 
  return function() {        
      return setTimeout(function(){            
      //my function
    }, i*1500);        
  }; 
}

// code to create the functions
function playWithDelay(){   
  for (var i = 0; i < PlayDatesArray.length; i++) { 
    timeouts.push(createfunc(i)());
  }
} 


// code to stop them
function stopplay(){ 
  timeouts.forEach(clearTimeout);
}

answered Oct 24, 2012 at 0:21

Sean Kinsey

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Comments

mrk · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-24 00:19:10Z

1

You're accessing this.funcs from stopplay(), but funcs is defined (at least, in this example) as a global var. Depending on what the calling code is that calls stopplay(), this is not the same scope as the global scope that funcs is created in.

Update stopplay, changing this.funcs.count to funcs to see if that is alerted with the array you created above.

Also, are you sure your funcs Array has count? I would try using length instead.

function stopplay(){    
    alert(funcs.length);
    for (var i = 0; i< funcs.length; i++){ 
    ....
    }    
}

EDIT:

You're not saving the return value of setTimeout, so you can't clear the timeout. Passing clearTimeout with a function doesn't clear the timeout.

You could do something like this:

var timers = new Array();


function createfunc(i) { 
   return function() {        
      timers.push( setTimeout(function(){            
        //my function
      }, i*1500)) ;        
   }; 
}


function stopplay(){    
    for (var i = 0; i< timers.length; i++){ 
        clearTimeout(timers[i]);
    }    
}

edited Oct 24, 2012 at 0:19

answered Oct 23, 2012 at 23:59

mrk

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2 Comments

Andrew Over a year ago

Yes, got it, messed up with c# syntax. But still, clearTimeout is not applied and scheduled functions are executed..

mrk Over a year ago

see my edit, you were not saving the return value from calls to setTimeout. You need to pass the return value of a setTimeout call to clearTimeout, not the function you first passed to setTimeout.

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