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JavaScript

Posted by Abe Layee
Abe Layee
8,378 Points

Calling Anonymous Function with setTimeout() method

Hello all. How are you doing today? I hope you're better:D Anyway, I am having some problem calling my anonymous function with setTimeout(). I tried preventing the function from running by deleting the at the end of the curly braces but is not working. Here is my code. I don't what I am doing wrong.

 var diem = "Am"; 
   (function() {  //anonymous function with no name

       var newDate = new Date(); // new date object
       var h = newDate.getHours(); // get the hour from the date object
       var m = newDate.getMinutes(); // get the minutes from the date object
       var s = newDate.getSeconds(); // get the seconds from the hour object
       var elDate = document.getElementById('date'); // get the date element
       var elTime = document.getElementById('time'); // get the time element

  // if hour is equal to 0, add 12 to it.
        if (h===0) {
            h = 12;
        }

/* change the hour format from 24 to 12 and 
   Diem to Pm if the hour is greater than 12 */
       if (h>12) {
         h = h-12;
         diem = "PM";
         console.log(h +":" + diem);
       } 

         else if (h < 10) {
            h = 0 + hour;
         } 


          else if(m <10) {
             m = 0 + m; // add zero to the minutes
          }

             else if (s < 10) {
                s = 0 + s; // add zero to the second.
             }

          // Call the anonymous function every one second with the setTimeout() method

          var runAnonymousFunction = setTimeout(function(),1000); // this my error right here.

})();

2 Answers

rydavim
rydavim
18,814 Points

You can't 'call' an anonymous function later on in your code. If you want to do that, you will need to store the function in a variable so that you can reference it later.

If you want to use an anonymous function, you need to include the code inside the function.

var runAnonymousFunction = setTimeout(function(){
// The code you want to run goes here.
},1000);

Additionally, it doesn't sound like setTimeout is the method you want to be using. From the w3schools page: The setTimeout() method will wait the specified number of milliseconds, and then execute the specified function.

Maybe setInterval would work better for you? The setInterval() method will wait a specified number of milliseconds, and then execute a specified function, and it will continue to execute the function, once at every given time-interval.

Please let me know if you have any other questions!

Abe Layee
Abe Layee
8,378 Points
Abe Layee
Abe Layee
8,378 Points

aww, thank you. I learn something new everyday.