Question

I have a recursive function which contains some drawing code inside. I was advised to use setTimeout as my drawing was not being displayed until the end of exection. First I put just the drawing code inside setTimeout but this did not help, however when I put the main recursive loop inside setTimeout the drawing worked perfectly, as shown below.

However I need to use the return value of setTimeout (i.e. state as shown below). How can I get this return value when using setTimeout, or solve this problem in another way.

var doLearning = function(time, observedData, state, domain, sampleAction, selectModel, numSamples, depth, discount, stateQueries) {
    if(stateQueries[0](time, state) === true) {
        console.log("New Round");
        var currentModel = selectModel(observedData, 10, stateQueries);
        var bestAction = sparseSampleMcmc(depth, numSamples, discount, currentModel, state, sampleAction, stateQueries);
        var newStateReward = domain.executeAction(bestAction, stateQueries);
        observedData.push(bestAction, newStateReward[1], newStateReward[0]);
        console.log(time);
        setTimeout(doLearning, 100, time + 1, observedData, newStateReward[0], domain, sampleAction, selectModel, numSamples, depth, discount, stateQueries);
    } else {
        console.log("Game Over");
        return state;
    }
}

Answer 1

Make an object with all your vars, like:

var game = {
     time: ... ,
     observedData: ...., 
     state: .... etc
 }

In doLearning get and modify this object’s properties when necessary:

  var doLearning = function(obj) {

       if(obj.state == ....)
           obj.currentModel = whatever...
           obj.bestAction = whatever...
           setTimeout(function() { doLearning(obj) }, 100)
       else
           game over
  }