Question

I would like to delay my while loop on each iteration. I tried the following:

var o = 1;
while(o<4){
    setTimeout("setupAnimation(o)",2000);
    //setupAnimation(o); //<--this works but everything happens att the same time
    o++;
}

I also tried to write it like this, which didn’t work either:

var o = 1;
function repeatMe(){
    setupAnimation(o);
    o++;
    setTimout('repeatMe()',1000);
}

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

eval is slow, hard to debug and has potential security problems (depending on where the data comes from). Don’t use it. (Passing a string to setTimeout uses eval by proxy.)

Pass a function to setTimeout instead. You’ll need to use a closure to capture the current value of o for the function you pass.

You should probably also use a for loop here instead of a while loop. The syntax is clearer.

function setupAnimationFactory(o) {
    return function() {
        setupAnimation(o);
    }
}

for (var o = 0; o < 4; o++){
    setTimeout(setupAnimationFactory(o),2000);
}