Does Node.js enforce a minimum delay for setTimeout?

Question

In browsers, if you use setTimeout from within a function called by setTimeout then a minimum delay of 4ms will be enforced. Mozilla\'s developer w

Answer 1

From this test, it doesn't seem that it does have a minimum delay.

If you do a setTimeout() that has a 10ms duration, and long the return value to the console, this is what you get:

 var timer = setTimeout(function(){ console.log(timer);}, 10);

 { _idleTimeout: 10,
  _onTimeout: [Function],
  _idlePrev: null,
  _idleNext: null,
  _idleStart: Sun, 28 Aug 2011 14:34:41 GMT } 

Similarly, with a 1ms duration, you get:

 var timer = setTimeout(function(){ console.log(timer);}, 1);

 { _idleTimeout: 1,
  _onTimeout: [Function],
  _idlePrev: null,
  _idleNext: null,
  _idleStart: Sun, 28 Aug 2011 14:34:59 GMT } 

But if you do a 0 duration, you don't get an _idleTimeout: property at all, which would seem to suggest that the callback is invoked immediately, though asynchronously.

var timer = setTimeout(function(){ console.log(timer);}, 0);

{ repeat: 0, callback: [Function] }

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Furthermore, if I do simple start/end date comparison, I usually get 0 as the result of subtracting the start from the end.

var start = Date.now();
var timer = setTimeout(function(){ console.log(timer, Date.now() - start );}, 0);

{ repeat: 0, callback: [Function] } 0

These tests were done using Node.js 0.5.2.