Node.js setTimeout with callbacks

Question

Node.js setTimeout with callbacks

I'm running a node.js app and have a process that runs every 500ms. There's a lot of logic that's being done and at times, we found it could run over 500ms - this caused problems when using a setInterval.

We redesigned this to use setTimeout with a callback such as this:

    var start = function() {

            self.performProcesses(function() {
                setTimeout(function() {
                    start();
                }, 500);
            });
        }

    start();

The problem is sometimes this stops, meaning somewhere along the road a callback from performProcesses is not being hit. There are thousands of lines of code that reach multiple objects and files.

Would anyone recommend a good way to try to debug this and isolate where the break may be?

Thanks!

javascript
debugging
node.js

Answer 1

When I program in JavaScript I use Aptana. It is part of a collection called Appcelerator, which is pretty much Eclipse. Aptana let's you develop and debug in JavaScript, so you can StepInto, StepOver, and whatever..

Answer 2

Have you tried web-inspector?

You can also try Paul Irish anim shim at loop controlling. If you call requestAnimFrame after self.performProcess, it will be called at interval of 500ms.

var requestAnimFrame = function (callback) { setTimeout(callback, 500); };

(function animloop () {
  self.performProcesses();
  requestAnimFrame(animloop);
})();