Question

hi I’m trying create chat using node.js
I see example in http://chat.nodejs.org/
I have tried it and it works but how can I remove/delete data from server using interval time like in javascript without have to restart node.js/ terminal prompt?….
example:
time:
17:14
17:12
16:13
15:11
14:17

function del(){
if(time<timenow-1000){delete time;}}

setInterval("del()",10000);

I want to delete data less than two hours ago every one hours using interval time…thanks

Answer 1

First off, I would highly recommend against using the setInterval overload you are using that takes an eval string. Instead, always use the version that takes a callback. For example:

setInterval(1000, function () {
  // do something
});

Take a look at the source and you will see that messages are stored in the messages array:
https://github.com/ry/node_chat/blob/master/server.js

Your function just needs to inspect this array and remove messages whose timestamp is older than your desired date. For example:

setInterval(1000, function () {
  while (messages.length && messages[0].timestamp < someTime) {
    messages.shift();
  }
});

This will keep removing the oldest message while it is older than someTime, which is a time you will need to specify.