find the time left in a setTimeout()?

Question

I'm writing some Javascript that interacts with library code that I don't own, and can't (reasonably) change. It creates Javascript timeouts used for showing the next question in a series of time-limited questions. This isn't real code because it is obfuscated beyond all hope. Here's what the library is doing:

....
// setup a timeout to go to the next question based on user-supplied time
var t = questionTime * 1000
test.currentTimeout = setTimeout( showNextQuestion(questions[i+1]), t );

I want to put a progress bar onscreen that fills towards questionTime * 1000 by interrogating the timer created by setTimeout. The only problem is, there seems to be no way to do this. Is there a getTimeout function that I'm missing? The only information on Javascript timeouts that I can find is related only to creation via setTimeout( function, time) and deletion via clearTimeout( id ).

I'm looking for a function that returns either the time remaining before a timeout fires, or the time elapsed after a timeout has been called. My progress bar code looks like this:

var  timeleft = getTimeout( test.currentTimeout ); // I don't know how to do this
var  $bar = $('.control .bar');
while ( timeleft > 1 ) {
    $bar.width(timeleft / test.defaultQuestionTime * 1000);
}

tl;dr: How do I find the time remaining before a javascript setTimeout()?

---

Here's the solution I'm using now. I went through the library section that's in charge of tests, and unscrambled the code (terrible, and against my permissions).

// setup a timeout to go to the next question based on user-supplied time
var t = questionTime * 1000
test.currentTimeout = mySetTimeout( showNextQuestion(questions[i+1]), t );

and here's my code:

// wrapper for setTimeout
function mySetTimeout( func, timeout ) {
    timeouts[ n = setTimeout( func, timeout ) ] = {
        start: new Date().getTime(),
        end: new Date().getTime() + timeout
        t: timeout
    }
    return n;
}

This works pretty spot-on in any browser that isn't IE 6. Even the original iPhone, where I expected things to get asynchronous.

Answer 1

    (function(){
        window.activeCountdowns = [];
        window.setCountdown = function (code, delay, callback, interval) {
            var timeout = delay;
            var timeoutId = setTimeout(function(){
                clearCountdown(timeoutId);
                return code();
            }, delay);
            window.activeCountdowns.push(timeoutId);
            setTimeout(function countdown(){
                var key = window.activeCountdowns.indexOf(timeoutId);
                if (key < 0) return;
                timeout -= interval;
                setTimeout(countdown, interval);
                return callback(timeout);
            }, interval);
            return timeoutId;
        };
        window.clearCountdown = function (timeoutId) {
            clearTimeout(timeoutId);
            var key = window.activeCountdowns.indexOf(timeoutId);
            if (key < 0) return;
            window.activeCountdowns.splice(key, 1);
        };
    })();

    //example
    var t = setCountdown(function () {
        console.log('done');
    }, 15000, function (i) {
        console.log(i / 1000);
    }, 1000);

Answer 2

Here is maybe an even better way to do it, plus, you won't need to change code you've already written:

var getTimeout = (function() { // IIFE
    var _setTimeout = setTimeout, // Reference to the original setTimeout
        map = {}; // Map of all timeouts with their start date and delay

    setTimeout = function(callback, delay) { // Modify setTimeout
        var id = _setTimeout(callback, delay); // Run the original, and store the id

        map[id] = [Date.now(), delay]; // Store the start date and delay

        return id; // Return the id
    };

    return function(id) { // The actual getTimeLeft function
        var m = map[id]; // Find the timeout in map

        // If there was no timeout with that id, return NaN, otherwise, return the time left clamped to 0
        return m ? Math.max(m[1] - Date.now() + m[0], 0) : NaN;
    }
})();

... And mimimized:

var getTimeout=function(){var e=setTimeout,b={};setTimeout=function(a,c){var d=e(a,c);b[d]=[Date.now(),c];return d};return function(a){return(a=b[a])?Math.max(a[1]-Date.now()+a[0],0):NaN}}();

Answer 3

You can modify setTimeout to store each timeout's end time in a map and create a function called getTimeout to get the time left for a timeout with a certain id.

This was super's solution, but I modified it to use slightly less memory

let getTimeout = (() => { // IIFE
    let _setTimeout = setTimeout, // Reference to the original setTimeout
        map = {}; // Map of all timeouts with their end times

    setTimeout = (callback, delay) => { // Modify setTimeout
        let id = _setTimeout(callback, delay); // Run the original, and store the id
        map[id] = Date.now() + delay; // Store the end time
        return id; // Return the id
    };

    return (id) => { // The actual getTimeout function
        // If there was no timeout with that id, return NaN, otherwise, return the time left clamped to 0
        return map[id] ? Math.max(map[id] - Date.now(), 0) : NaN;
    }
})();

Usage:

// go home in 4 seconds
let redirectTimeout = setTimeout(() => {
    window.location.href = "/index.html";
}, 4000);

// display the time left until the redirect
setInterval(() => {
    document.querySelector("#countdown").innerHTML = `Time left until redirect ${getTimeout(redirectTimeout)}`;
},1);

Here's a minified version of this getTimeout IIFE:

let getTimeout=(()=>{let t=setTimeout,e={};return setTimeout=((a,o)=>{let u=t(a,o);return e[u]=Date.now()+o,u}),t=>e[t]?Math.max(e[t]-Date.now(),0):NaN})();

I hope this is as useful to you as it was for me! :)

Answer 4

No, but you can have your own setTimeout/setInterval for animation in your function.

Say your question looks like this:

function myQuestion() {
  // animate the progress bar for 1 sec
  animate( "progressbar", 1000 );

  // do the question stuff
  // ...
}

And your animation will be handled by these 2 functions:

function interpolate( start, end, pos ) {
  return start + ( pos * (end - start) );
}

function animate( dom, interval, delay ) {

      interval = interval || 1000;
      delay    = delay    || 10;

  var start    = Number(new Date());

  if ( typeof dom === "string" ) {
    dom = document.getElementById( dom );
  }

  function step() {

    var now     = Number(new Date()),
        elapsed = now - start,
        pos     = elapsed / interval,
        value   = ~~interpolate( 0, 500, pos ); // 0-500px (progress bar)

    dom.style.width = value + "px";

    if ( elapsed < interval )
      setTimeout( step, delay );
  }

  setTimeout( step, delay );
}

Answer 5

Check this one:

class Timer {
  constructor(fun,delay) {
    this.timer=setTimeout(fun, delay)
    this.stamp=new Date()
  }
  get(){return ((this.timer._idleTimeout - (new Date-this.stamp))/1000) }
  clear(){return (this.stamp=null, clearTimeout(this.timer))}
}

Make a timer:

let smtg = new Timer(()=>{do()}, 3000})

Get remain:

smth.get()

Clear timeout

smth.clear()

Answer 6

EDIT: I actually think I made an even better one: https://stackoverflow.com/a/36389263/2378102

I wrote this function and I use it a lot:

function timer(callback, delay) {
    var id, started, remaining = delay, running

    this.start = function() {
        running = true
        started = new Date()
        id = setTimeout(callback, remaining)
    }

    this.pause = function() {
        running = false
        clearTimeout(id)
        remaining -= new Date() - started
    }

    this.getTimeLeft = function() {
        if (running) {
            this.pause()
            this.start()
        }

        return remaining
    }

    this.getStateRunning = function() {
        return running
    }

    this.start()
}

Make a timer:

a = new timer(function() {
    // What ever
}, 3000)

So if you want the time remaining just do:

a.getTimeLeft()