Question

i got a problem with setTimeout.. i dont know why this will not work..

$(document).ready(function(){
var counterNum = 0;

function tick()
{        
    addText(counterNum);
    setTimeout('tick()',1000);
    counterNum++;
}

function addText(strNum)
{
 $("div.counter").empty();
 $("div.counter").append(strNum);           
}
});​

you can check it here for the live preview LINK

and also sir, what is the difference between

setTimeout('tick()',1000);

and

setTimeout(tick(),1000);

?

Answer 1

Try:

$(document).ready(function(){
var counterNum = 0;

function tick()
{        
    addText(counterNum);
    setTimeout(tick,1000);
    counterNum++;
}

function addText(strNum)
{
 $("div.counter").empty();
 $("div.counter").append(strNum+"");   

}

tick();

});

The difference between

setTimeout('tick()',1000)

and

setTimeout(tick(), 1000)

is that the second one will not wait 1000ms to execute, but if you changed it to

setTimeout(tick, 1000)

it would be effectively the same. Technically, it would change the scope of where the function was called from.