@rbxts/jsnatives

Timers

The Timers module provides functions for scheduling code execution after a delay and at regular intervals.

Overview

The module includes four main functions:

• setTimeout: Schedules a function to run after a specified delay
• clearTimeout: Cancels a scheduled timeout
• setInterval: Repeatedly runs a function with a fixed delay between executions
• clearInterval: Stops an interval from continuing to run

These functions provide JavaScript-like timer functionality in the Roblox environment, using Roblox's task.delay system internally.

Signatures

function setTimeout(cb: (sym: symbol) => void, ms = 0): symbol
function clearTimeout(sym: symbol | undefined): void
function setInterval(cb: (sym: symbol) => void, ms = 0): symbol
function clearInterval(sym: symbol | undefined): void

Basic Usage

// Execute code after 2 seconds
const timeout = setTimeout((sym) => {
  print("Timeout executed after 2 seconds");
}, 2000);

// Execute code every 1 second
const interval = setInterval((sym) => {
  print("Interval executing every second");
}, 1000);

// Cancel the scheduled timeout (if it hasn't executed yet)
clearTimeout(timeout);

// Stop the interval after 5 seconds
setTimeout((sym) => {
  clearInterval(interval);
  print("Interval stopped after 5 seconds");
}, 5000);

Implementation Details

The module uses symbol objects as unique identifiers for both timeouts and intervals. This avoids potential memory leaks that could occur with numeric IDs or other reference types.

When you create a timeout or interval, the callback receives the symbol as its parameter, allowing you to cancel it from within the callback itself.

Internally, the module uses WeakMaps to track active timeouts and intervals, ensuring proper cleanup when symbols are no longer referenced.