What I'm trying to do is make slide out panels, but here is a simplified example of the problem I'm running into.

myCount = document.getElementById("counter")
myCount.onclick = startCount;
count = 0;

function startCount() { 
    timer = setInterval("countToTen()", 200);   
}

function countToTen() {

    count++;
    myCount.innerHTML = count;

    if (count >= 10) {
        clearInterval(timer);
    }
}

It works great if you click once. If you double click (and we can't trust users to only click when they're supposed to), then the counter goes on forever. I guess two timers got made, but Firebug is showing timer to always have the same id. So how do you use clearInterval correctly when setInterval got called twice?

What I'm trying to do is make slide out panels, but here is a simplified example of the problem I'm running into.

myCount = document.getElementById("counter")
myCount.onclick = startCount;
count = 0;

function startCount() { 
    timer = setInterval("countToTen()", 200);   
}

function countToTen() {

    count++;
    myCount.innerHTML = count;

    if (count >= 10) {
        clearInterval(timer);
    }
}

It works great if you click once. If you double click (and we can't trust users to only click when they're supposed to), then the counter goes on forever. I guess two timers got made, but Firebug is showing timer to always have the same id. So how do you use clearInterval correctly when setInterval got called twice?

• javascript
• timer
• setinterval

Share Improve this question Follow asked Apr 30, 2011 at 10:10 pennydropspennydrops 14911 gold badge22 silver badges77 bronze badges

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1 Answer 1

Sorted by: Reset to default 6

var timer;
function startCount() { 
    if (!timer) {
        timer = setInterval(countToTen, 200);
    }
}