Memoirs of a Programmer

Ever wish you could just simply give a function a line of code (that's always the same) and that function instantly comes back after a specified duration, INCLUDING the original arguments you passed in? Up until now, I didn't have a real quick way of doing this. You would have to use setTimeout and a bit of other ugly tactics to make this happen.

Not today. Instead, use a simple workaround that takes in the function's arguments and creates a setTimeout callback. Here's the line of code you would include in your functions :

 
// Include it like this :

function someFunction(string)
{
    detach(arguments, 600); 
    //600 is the milliseconds duration until the function call is processed

 
    alert("someFunction : " + string);
}

//And then just run your code :

someFunction("Hello world");

// and after 600 milliseconds, the alert window will come up from someFunction :
//   'someFunction : Hello world'

... and voila, we've got a simple way of detaching the function call from the main process!

Here is the method to make this happen :

function detach(_arguments, duration)
{
    if(typeof(duration) == "undefined")
        duration = 0;
  
    if(_arguments[_arguments.length-1] != "detached")
    {
        var argument_string = "setTimeout(function(){_arguments.callee(";
  
        for(var i = 0; i < _arguments.length; i++)
        {
            argument_string += "_arguments[" + i + "], ";
        }
  
        argument_string += "'detached')}, " + duration + ");";
  
        eval(argument_string);
  
        ignore.fail();
    }
}

Use this function in areas where you don't want a function process to halt the user (So they can visit other parts of the web site). Also useful in SyJAX requests, where the transaction with the server may take a while.

Also, notice that I call a non-existant object method('ignore.fail') so that I can fail out the current main process. If anyone knows a better way to break the entire function process trail, please let me know.