setTimeout or setInterval?

Question

As far as I can tell, these two pieces of javascript behave the same way:

Option A:

function myTimeoutFunction()
{
    doStuff();
           


        

Answer 1

The setInterval makes it easier to cancel future execution of your code. If you use setTimeout, you must keep track of the timer id in case you wish to cancel it later on.

var timerId = null;
function myTimeoutFunction()
{
    doStuff();
    timerId = setTimeout(myTimeoutFunction, 1000);
}

myTimeoutFunction();

// later on...
clearTimeout(timerId);

versus

function myTimeoutFunction()
{
    doStuff();
}

myTimeoutFunction();
var timerId = setInterval(myTimeoutFunction, 1000);

// later on...
clearInterval(timerId);