Please can someone help me. I need to create a delay/sleep function in JS

Question

I'll be using it in a 'for' loop to change a canvas everytime the loop executes.

Answer 1

... and if you want to improve the code:

var count = 0;
var button_ref;
function example(button) {
if (button) {
button.disabled = true; // disable the button while animation is running
button_ref = button; // save the button reference
}
console.log(count);
if (++count<50) setTimeout(example,500);
else {
count = 0; // reinitialize the counter for being able to rerun the loop
button_ref.disabled = false; // enable the button click
}
}

... and change the onclick attribute of the button with:

onclick = "example(this)"

Answer 2

Because you call the setInterval() many times (at each iteration of your for loop)...
Don't use 'for' loop, and if you need a counter use it like:

var count = 0;
function example(){
console.log(count);
if (++count<50) setTimeout(example,500);
}

Answer 3

// basically:
var delay = 1000; // milliseconds
function animationLoop() {
/* put here the code used to update canvas */
document.body.innerHTML += 'update<br>'; // just for the demo ;)
/* this last line below call the first argument function after delay */
window.setTimeout(animationLoop,delay);
}
animationLoop(); // call the update function only a first time to start the loop (no 'for' loop)

Answer 4

In the setTimeout method, put only the function name: the parameter expect a function object/reference, not the return value of a function call ^^

Answer 5

Another example
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19389200/javascript-sleep-delay-wait-function

Answer 6

Examples
https://www.w3schools.com/js/js_timing.asp

Answer 7

Thank you

Answer 8

Thanx, I'll definitely try it

Answer 9

Francois Breedt What do you mean by sleep function?

Answer 10

The program should wait a certain amount of milliseconds before the next line of code executes

Answer 11

You can use setTimeout() to execute a function only once after specified time in milliseconds

Answer 12

Thank you very much for your help. Can someone please explain why the following does not work
https://code.sololearn.com/WtLHh1rtV1Vg/?ref=app