Effect on performance of large setTimeout time

Question

I need to display a notice every hour, or at certain hourly intervals. I was wondering what the effect on performance is of having such a large time out time?

setTimeout(function(){ ... } ,60*60*1000)

The timer doesn't have to be perfect and can be a couple of milliseconds out.

What do you mean by performance? CPU-call needed by that code? — Jordumus, May 20 '15 at 13:48
If you want it to run at certain intervals you might want to use setInterval ([W3schools](http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/met_win_setinterval.asp)). But by resources do you mean if this will slow down the site in general if this JS is running? — Thomas Theunen, May 20 '15 at 13:53
Similar question maybe: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20670273/javascript-timed-notifications-settimeout-setinterval — Matt Derrick, May 20 '15 at 13:54

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered May 20 '15 at 13:53

1

the answer is no... you don't have performace problems... but i think you needs to use SetInterval instead SetTimeout to repeat the call every x time

answered May 20 '15 at 13:53

lem2802

1,152
7
18

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered May 20 '15 at 13:57

setTimeOut() (or setInterval() for that matter) itself is not expensive (performance-wise) at all: after all, it's just a check to see if the determined time has passed.

The "time" you determine doesn't change the performance at all. A setTimeOut(function() {;}, 100); is as expensive as setTimeOut(function() {;}, 1000);.

What might slow down your site/app is the code that has to run when the timeout triggers.

Effect on performance of large setTimeout time

2 Answers2