Window: setInterval() method

func

A function to be executed every delay milliseconds. The first execution happens after delay milliseconds.

code

An optional syntax allows you to include a string instead of a function, which is compiled and executed every delay milliseconds. This syntax is not recommended for the same reasons that make using eval() a security risk.

delay Optional

The time, in milliseconds (thousandths of a second), the timer should delay in between executions of the specified function or code. Defaults to 0 if not specified. See Delay restrictions below for details on the permitted range of delay values.

arg1, …, argN Optional

Additional arguments which are passed through to the function specified by func once the timer expires.

The returned intervalID is a numeric, non-zero value which identifies the timer created by the call to setInterval(); this value can be passed to clearInterval() to cancel the interval.

It may be helpful to be aware that setInterval() and setTimeout() share the same pool of IDs, and that clearInterval() and clearTimeout() can technically be used interchangeably. For clarity, however, you should try to always match them to avoid confusion when maintaining your code.

The following example demonstrates setInterval()'s basic syntax.

const intervalID = setInterval(myCallback, 500, "Parameter 1", "Parameter 2");

function myCallback(a, b) {
  // Your code here
  // Parameters are purely optional.
  console.log(a);
  console.log(b);
}

The following example calls the flashtext() function once a second until the Stop button is pressed.

HTML

<div id="my_box">
  <h3>Hello World</h3>
</div>
<button id="start">Start</button>
<button id="stop">Stop</button>

CSS

.go {
  color: green;
}
.stop {
  color: red;
}

JavaScript

// variable to store our intervalID
let intervalId;

function changeColor() {
  // check if an interval has already been set up
  if (!intervalId) {
    intervalId = setInterval(flashText, 1000);
  }
}

function flashText() {
  const oElem = document.getElementById("my_box");
  oElem.className = oElem.className === "go" ? "stop" : "go";
}

function stopTextColor() {
  clearInterval(intervalId);
  // release our intervalId from the variable
  intervalId = null;
}

document.getElementById("start").addEventListener("click", changeColor);
document.getElementById("stop").addEventListener("click", stopTextColor);

Result

When you pass a method to setInterval() or any other function, it is invoked with the wrong this value. This problem is explained in detail in the JavaScript reference.

Code executed by setInterval() runs in a separate execution context than the function from which it was called. As a consequence, the this keyword for the called function is set to the window (or global) object, it is not the same as the this value for the function that called setTimeout. See the following example (which uses setTimeout() instead of setInterval() – the problem, in fact, is the same for both timers):

myArray = ["zero", "one", "two"];

myArray.myMethod = function (sProperty) {
  alert(arguments.length > 0 ? this[sProperty] : this);
};

myArray.myMethod(); // prints "zero,one,two"
myArray.myMethod(1); // prints "one"
setTimeout(myArray.myMethod, 1000); // prints "[object Window]" after 1 second
setTimeout(myArray.myMethod, 1500, "1"); // prints "undefined" after 1.5 seconds

// Passing the 'this' object with .call won't work
// because this will change the value of this inside setTimeout itself
// while we want to change the value of this inside myArray.myMethod.
// In fact, it will be an error because setTimeout code expects this to be the window object:
setTimeout.call(myArray, myArray.myMethod, 2000); // error: "NS_ERROR_XPC_BAD_OP_ON_WN_PROTO: Illegal operation on WrappedNative prototype object"
setTimeout.call(myArray, myArray.myMethod, 2500, 2); // same error

As you can see there are no ways to pass the this object to the callback function in the legacy JavaScript.

All modern JavaScript runtimes (in browsers and elsewhere) support arrow functions, with lexical this — allowing us to write setInterval(() => this.myMethod()) if we're inside the myArray method.

If you need to support IE, use the Function.prototype.bind() method, which lets you specify the value that should be used as this for all calls to a given function. That lets you easily bypass problems where it's unclear what this will be, depending on the context from which your function was called.

The setInterval() function is commonly used to set a delay for functions that are executed again and again, such as animations. You can cancel the interval using clearInterval().

If you wish to have your function called once after the specified delay, use setTimeout().

It's possible for intervals to be nested; that is, the callback for setInterval() can in turn call setInterval() to start another interval running, even though the first one is still going. To mitigate the potential impact this can have on performance, once intervals are nested beyond five levels deep, the browser will automatically enforce a 4 ms minimum value for the interval. Attempts to specify a value less than 4 ms in deeply-nested calls to setInterval() will be pinned to 4 ms.

Browsers may enforce even more stringent minimum values for the interval under some circumstances, although these should not be common. Note also that the actual amount of time that elapses between calls to the callback may be longer than the given delay; see Reasons for delays longer than specified for examples.

If there is a possibility that your logic could take longer to execute than the interval time, it is recommended that you recursively call a named function using setTimeout(). For example, if using setInterval() to poll a remote server every 5 seconds, network latency, an unresponsive server, and a host of other issues could prevent the request from completing in its allotted time. As such, you may find yourself with queued up XHR requests that won't necessarily return in order.

In these cases, a recursive setTimeout() pattern is preferred:

(function loop() {
  setTimeout(() => {
    // Your logic here

    loop();
  }, delay);
})();

In the above snippet, a named function loop() is declared and is immediately executed. loop() is recursively called inside setTimeout() after the logic has completed executing. While this pattern does not guarantee execution on a fixed interval, it does guarantee that the previous interval has completed before recursing.

• Polyfill of setInterval which allows passing arguments to the callback in core-js
• Window.clearInterval()
• WorkerGlobalScope.setInterval()
• Window.setTimeout()
• Window.requestAnimationFrame()