How to create a sleep/delay in nodejs that is Blocking?

Question

I\'m currently trying to learn nodejs and a small project I\'m working is writing an API to control some networked LED lights.

The microprocessor controlling the LED

Answer 1

The best solution is to create singleton controller for your LED which will queue all commands and execute them with specified delay:

function LedController(timeout) {
  this.timeout = timeout || 100;
  this.queue = [];
  this.ready = true;
}

LedController.prototype.send = function(cmd, callback) {
  sendCmdToLed(cmd);
  if (callback) callback();
  // or simply `sendCmdToLed(cmd, callback)` if sendCmdToLed is async
};

LedController.prototype.exec = function() {
  this.queue.push(arguments);
  this.process();
};

LedController.prototype.process = function() {
  if (this.queue.length === 0) return;
  if (!this.ready) return;
  var self = this;
  this.ready = false;
  this.send.apply(this, this.queue.shift());
  setTimeout(function () {
    self.ready = true;
    self.process();
  }, this.timeout);
};

var Led = new LedController();

Now you can call Led.exec and it'll handle all delays for you:

Led.exec(cmd, function() {
  console.log('Command sent');
});