node.js: while loop callback not working as expected

Question

Knowing that while Node.js is working asynchronously, writing something like this:

function sleep() {
    var stop = new Date().getTime();
    while(new Date().g         


        

Answer 1

Javascript and node.js are single threaded, which means a simple while blocks; no requests/events can be processed until the while block is done. Callbacks don't magically solve this problem, they just help pass custom code to a function. Instead, iterate using process.nextTick, which will give you esentially the same results but leaves space for requests and events to be processed as well, ie, it doesn't block:

function doSleep(callback) {
    var stop = new Date().getTime();

    process.nextTick(function() {
        if(new Date().getTime() < stop + 15000) {
            //Done, run callback
            if(typeof callback == "function") {
                callback();
            }
        } else {
            //Not done, keep looping
            process.nextTick(arguments.callee);
        }
    });
}

doSleep(function() {
    console.log("done sleeping");
    console.log("DONE");
});