@eomm/set-huge-timeout

setTimeout handles delay as a 32-bit signed integer. This causes an integer overflow when using delays larger than 2,147,483,647 ms (about 24.8 days), resulting in the timeout being executed immediately.

This package bypass this limit using a recursive setTimeout call hiding the complexity!

Install

npm install @eomm/set-huge-timeout

Usage

Use it as a normal setTimeout call, but without caring about the limit!

Note that the returned value is an object instead of a Timeout object.

The object has two properties:

• timeout: This is the reference to the timeout, so you can clear it using clearTimeout
• emitter: This is an EventEmitter that emits some utility events:
  • reschedule: Emitted when the timeout is rescheduled

Keep in mind that the timeout property is updated at every internal reschedule, so you can clear the timeout at any time only if you read the timeoutReference.timeout property, otherwise you may read an old reference.

const { setHugeTimeout } = require('@eomm/set-huge-timeout')

const oneYear = 31_536_000_000

const timeoutReference = setHugeTimeout((message) => {
  console.log(message)
}, oneYear, 'Hello, world!')

timeoutReference.emitter.on('reschedule', (timeLeft) => {
  console.log(`Rescheduled to ${timeLeft}`)
})

// Clear the timeout
clearTimeout(timeoutReference.timeout)

Test mode

This module has a test mode that allows to ease the testing of huge timeouts.

Here is an example using Sinon Fake Timers:

const FakeTimers = require('@sinonjs/fake-timers')
const HugeTimeout = require('@eomm/set-huge-timeout')

const { setHugeTimeout } = HugeTimeout

const clock = FakeTimers.createClock()

// Overwrite the internal setTimeout with the fake one.
// All the huge timeouts will be handled by the fake clock
// after this call.
hugeTimeout.test.overwriteSetTimeout(clock.setTimeout)

const waitMs = 2_147_483_999

// This timeout will be handled by the fake clock
setHugeTimeout(() => {
  console.log('Timeout!')
}, waitMs)

// Move the clock forward
clock.tick(waitMs) // Output: Timeout!

// Restore the original setTimeout when it's not needed anymore
hugeTimeout.test.restore()

License

Copyright Manuel Spigolon, Licensed under MIT.