Question

timeoutHandle = setTimeout(function() {
  //code
},1000);

alert(timeoutHandle) returns me some strange numbers like 1 or 2, should it be sth like 900 and counting down to 0 when the function is called ? So I guess I’m doing this wrong.

Answer 1

You can use Date.getTime() to get a Date object’s representation in milliseconds, so a (fairly accurate) approximation would be:

timeoutHandle = setTimeout(function() {
  // code
}, 1000);
timeoutStart = new Date().getTime();

...

var elapsedTime = new Date().getTime() - timeoutStart;

The return value of setTimeout and setInterval is just a sort of “timer ID” – you use it to stop the timer with clearTimeout and clearInterval, it doesn’t change dynamically.

Edit: As @Rocket points out, yes, you can use Date.now() instead of new Date().getTime().