Skip to content
New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Jump to bottom

doc: copyedit setTimeout() documentation #4434

Closed
wants to merge 1 commit into from
Closed

doc: copyedit setTimeout() documentation #4434

Changes from all commits
Commits
Show all changes
1 commit
Select commit
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
23 changes: 12 additions & 11 deletions doc/api/timers.markdown
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -49,25 +49,26 @@ milliseconds (approximately 25 days) or less than 1, Node.js will use 1 as the

## setTimeout(callback, delay[, arg][, ...])

To schedule execution of a one-time `callback` after `delay` milliseconds. Returns a
`timeoutObject` for possible use with `clearTimeout()`. Optionally you can
also pass arguments to the callback.
To schedule execution of a one-time `callback` after `delay` milliseconds.
Returns a `timeoutObject` for possible use with `clearTimeout()`. Optionally you
can also pass arguments to the callback.

It is important to note that your callback will probably not be called in exactly
`delay` milliseconds - Node.js makes no guarantees about the exact timing of when
the callback will fire, nor of the ordering things will fire in. The callback will
be called as close as possible to the time specified.
The callback will likely not be invoked in precisely `delay` milliseconds.
Node.js makes no guarantees about the exact timing of when callbacks will fire,
nor of their ordering. The callback will be called as close as possible to the
time specified.

To follow browser behavior, when using delays larger than 2147483647
milliseconds (approximately 25 days) or less than 1, the timeout is executed
immediately, as if the `delay` was set to 1.

## unref()

The opaque value returned by [`setTimeout`][] and [`setInterval`][] also has the method
`timer.unref()` which will allow you to create a timer that is active but if
it is the only item left in the event loop, it won't keep the program running.
If the timer is already `unref`d calling `unref` again will have no effect.
The opaque value returned by [`setTimeout`][] and [`setInterval`][] also has the
method `timer.unref()` which will allow you to create a timer that is active but
if it is the only item left in the event loop, it won't keep the program
running. If the timer is already `unref`d calling `unref` again will have no
effect.

In the case of `setTimeout` when you `unref` you create a separate timer that
will wakeup the event loop, creating too many of these may adversely effect
Expand Down