How to clearInterval with unknown ID?

Question

Say someone (evil) has set us a timer with setInterval, but we don\'t know its ID (we don\'t have the reference to the object, that setInterval is returning, no

Answer 1

From quick test, all major browsers (latest Chrome, Firefox and IE) give pretty small numbers as the ID so just looping "blindly" over all possible numbers should work just fine:

function ClearAllIntervals() {
    for (var i = 1; i < 99999; i++)
        window.clearInterval(i);
}

Full example:

window.onload = function() {
    window.setInterval(function() {
        document.getElementById("Tick").innerHTML += "tick
";
    }, 1000);
    window.setInterval(function() {
        document.getElementById("Tack").innerHTML += "tack
";
    }, 1000);
};

function ClearAllIntervals() {
    for (var i = 1; i < 99999; i++)
        window.clearInterval(i);
}

#Placeholder div { width: 80px; float: left; }

Clear All

    

    

This will stop all intervals, can't stop specific interval without knowing its ID of course.

As you can test for yourself, it should work on all major browsers mentioned above.