Question

When I put this in my header:

<script>
function checkiffinished() {
  var n = $('.result-row').length;
  while (n!==3)
  {
  n = $('.result-row').length;
  $("span").text("There are " + n + " divs.");
  };

  };
</script>

Then in the body put

<script>
 checkiffinished();
 </script>

then the page crashes.

The code is supposed to count the number of divs with the “result-row” class and repeat that until the number of divs with aforementioned class is 3.

How can I make it so as such and not crash the page?

EDIT 1: other jQuery I have in the page causes there to be .result-row elements on another event, that’s why I need it to check periodically.

EDIT2 : I’m trying to run this in parallel with some other jQuery that manipulates the elements on the page.

Answer 1

JavaScript can only run one piece of code at a time. So your while loop is clogging up all JavaScript execution. As a result, any code that adds elements is suspended – basically forever.

Instead, you might want to use an interval which checks e.g. each second: http://jsfiddle.net/pimvdb/sbs6m/1/.

function checkiffinished() {
  var n = $('.result-row').length;
  $("span").text("There are " + n + " divs.");
  if(n === 3) {
    // do something
    clearInterval(interval);
  }
};

var interval = setInterval(checkiffinished, 1000); // 1000 ms = 1 second