setTimeout with true zero delay
Like setTimeout, but without the 4 millisecond minimum delay.
Why a timer with no time? The supplied callback will be bumped to the back of the task queue. If other more critical tasks (like user interaction or screen rendering) are already in the queue, they will be allowed to finish first. But if the queue is empty, the setZeroTimeout callback will be executed immediately.
This can be useful for splitting up long-running tasks across frames. See David Baron's blog post for more on the motivation and methodology.
zero-timeout is provided as an ESM import.
import 'zero-timeout';Importing the module adds two methods to the global scope.
This method's interface is just like setTimeout but without the delay
argument:
var timeoutID = window.setZeroTimeout(function);
var timeoutID = window.setZeroTimeout(function, arg1, arg2, ...);The returned ID is a positive integer that can be passed to clearZeroTimeout.
Cancels a timer previously set up by setZeroTimeout. Syntax is similar to clearTimeout:
window.clearZeroTimeout(timeoutID);If the callback supplied to setZeroTimeout has already executed, or if the ID supplied to clearZeroTimeout is invalid, clearZeroTimeout will silently do nothing.