Question

I am using the following to pause the javascript for a few seconds:

 setTimeout(start_countdown(),3000);

It does not work, the function is called regardless of the seconds. The following function does however work, which doesnt use a function.

setTimeout(alert('hi'),3000);

How can I solve this?

Answer 1

You need to pass a function reference. You are passing a function’s return value.

The difference is this: one is a blueprint of the function you want to happen, the other means you are executing the function immediately and passing its return value to setTimeout.

setTimeout(start_countdown, 3000);

If you want to do something more complex than simply call a named function, OR you want to pass a param to the named function, you’ll need to instead pass an anonymous function to the timeout and call your function within that:

setTimeout(function() {
    start_countdown(/* possible params */);
    /* other code here as required */
}, 3000);