Unexpected behaviour in Timers api (setInterval, setTimeout)

[brentlintner]

Hey all,

Not sure if I am blatantly missing something, but I can not find any resource mentioning the current behaviour of setInterval/setTimeout methods in the Timers api for 0.4.x.

As per the current docs for 0.4.2, setTimeout and setInterval return a id, and can be cleared with clearInterval/clearTimeout.

http://nodejs.org/docs/v0.4.2/api/timers.html

But contrary to that, they apparently now return objects:

setTimeout (for 4000ms) returns:
{ _idleTimeout: 4000,
_onTimeout: [Function],
_idlePrev: { repeat: 4, _idleNext: [Circular], _idlePrev: [Circular], callback: [Function] },
_idleNext: { repeat: 4, _idleNext: [Circular], _idlePrev: [Circular], callback: [Function] },
_idleStart: Sun, 06 Mar 2011 00:55:16 GMT }

setInterval (every 4000ms) returns:
{ repeat: 4, callback: [Function] }

Is this expected or possibly new behaviour? I was able to clear the interval by deleting the callback property, but that I am not sure that is right... so, again, am I missing something?

For reference:

Using: v0.4.2
Platlform: Linux 2.6.35-27 (Ubuntu 10.10) x86_64

Cheers,

[koichik]

The object which setTimeout() / setInterval() returns is id. You can pass it to clearTimeout() / clearInterval(). Document does not say what type of id.

$ node
> var id = setTimeout(console.log, 10 * 1000, 'Timedout');
> clearTimeout(id);
> 

After 10s, nothing is output.

[brentlintner]

A big duh comes to mind. I think I need some sleep, because I am not being a good programmer at the moment. Not exactly sure how I came to my initial conclusion now. I must of additionally mixed up the methods when the clearing was not working as well. fail...

Apologies for wasting time, appreciate the reply.

[kav]

I don't know that sounds like a bit of a BS response. A giant object filled with crap and a few circular references is hardly an "ID". While it's true the trivial example works it's a real pain any time this goes async or across user requests.

[bnoordhuis]

@kav Not sure what you're getting at but if you can present a good use case - preferably as a standalone test case - we can look into it.

EDIT: but an even better idea is to raise it on the nodejs mailing list.

[kav]

Will do.