Question

I want to run a particular function every 5 minutes. If I write code like this:

function f() {
    console.log("hi");
    d3.timer(f, 5*60*1000);
    return true;
}

d3.timer(f, 5*60*1000);

then f seems to run once and then never again.

I achieved the desired behavior by creating a clone of f called f2: f calls d3.timer(f2) and f2 call d3.timer(f). This seems like an ugly hack. Is there a better way?

Answer 1

This sounds like a job for the standard JavaScript setInterval() method:

setInterval(f, 5*60*1000);

If you need it to run an animation at each invocation, that’s where d3.timer would be useful – otherwise, the standard setInterval and setTimeout methods are likely to be easier.