setInterval not continuing

Question

I can't get this code to do anything beyond counting down to 29 from 30. Does anyone have any insight or hints as to what I am doing wrong to cause it to only run once? I checked to make sure that all the functions are being called with console.logs on game.time (except the clearInterval one since it stops already after the first time through). How do I get the setInterval to keep looping until 0? Thanks in advance for any help! :)

//game object to contain variables and methods

var game = {

    // variable for time

    time: 30,

    // Start button onclick creates the time remaining object and calls the forloop to start 

    start: function() {
        // $("#time").html(game.time);
        game.countdown = setInterval(game.count(), 1000);

    }, //end of start function

    //what the set interval does which is subtract one second from game.time

    count: function() {

        game.time--;

        // if statement to check when time gets to zero

        if (game.time <= 0) {
            game.stop();
        }

        // puts the current time left on the page
        else {
            $("#time").html(game.time);
        }

    }, // End of count function

    // stops the set interval

    stop: function() {
        clearInterval(game.countdown);
    }, // end of stop function


}; // end game object

// Start button click calls the start method

$("#start").click(game.start);

Hi Robert, welcome to SO! Thanks for a clear, well-formatted question with code examples :) — Ben, May 01 '16 at 18:25

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered May 01 '16 at 18:23

setInterval takes a function refererence as a parameter, it should look like:

setInterval(game.count, 1000)

When you write it as game.count(), you're calling the count() method once, which is evaluated immediately.

Then, setInterval's signature will use the return value from that method instead of a function reference:

setInterval(whatever_the_return_value_was, 1000);

By passing only the reference (as game.count), the timer should work as expected. It will call the reference by itself, every 1000ms.

(MDN docs)

Thank you for your answer. That was exactly what was wrong! – Robert Prine May 07 '16 at 15:42 — Robert Prine, May 07 '16 at 15:42

setInterval not continuing

1 Answers1