Is there any limit to setTimeout?

Question

Specifically talking about (server side) V8, and assuming I\'m not concerned about accuracy because I can detect and compensate for it, could I literally set up tho

Answer 1

I don't know how node operates, but if you create MAXINT+1 timers without letting them run, you risk an integer overflow.

Answer 2

The only real world limit you may come up against is the amount of memory available to node. Use the following code to test. I successfully ran the example below using oneMillion and int32Max. When using int64Max, I received the following error from node. I'm using 64bit windows with 4gb of RAM.

FATAL ERROR: CALL_AND_RETRY_2 Allocation failed - process out of memory

Node code to test:

var util = require('util');
var int64Max = 9007199254740992; 
var int32Max = 2147483647;
var oneMillion = 1000000;
var tenThousand = 10000;
var counter = 0;

//Exchange the limiter with one of the above vars to test.
for (var i = 0; i < oneMillion; i++){   
     setTimeout(log, 1);
     //Required as the timeout/callback method will not be called until the loop ends due 
     //to node/js being single threaded.
     util.log('loop:' + i);
}

function log(){
     util.log('callback: ' + counter++);
}