Does calling setTimeout clear the callstack?

Question

Can a stack overflow be avoided in javascript by using the setTimeout method to call a function instead of calling it directly? My understanding of setTimeout is that it sho

Answer 1

There's another way to clear the call stack without using setTimeout():

testLoop.js

let counter = 0;
const max = 1000000000n  // 'n' signifies BigInteger
Error.stackTraceLimit = 100;

const A = () => {
  fp = B;
}

const B = () => {
  fp = A;
}

let fp = B;

const then = process.hrtime.bigint();

loop:   // label is not needed for this simple case though useful for some cases
for(;;) {
  counter++;
  if (counter > max) {
    const now = process.hrtime.bigint();
    const nanos = now - then;

    console.log({ "runtime(sec)": Number(nanos) / (1000000000.0) })
    throw Error('exit')
  }
  fp()
  continue loop;
}

output:

$ node testLoop.js
{ 'runtime(sec)': 20.647399601 }
C:\Users\jlowe\Documents\Projects\clearStack\testLoop.js:25
    throw Error('exit')
    ^

Error: exit
    at Object. (C:\Users\jlowe\Documents\Projects\clearStack\testLoop.js:25:11)
    at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:776:30)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:787:10)
    at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:653:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:593:12)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:585:3)
    at Function.Module.runMain (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:829:12)
    at startup (internal/bootstrap/node.js:283:19)
    at bootstrapNodeJSCore (internal/bootstrap/node.js:622:3)