Large Delay Value In setTimeout In JavaScript

Hello Dev,

In this article, I will explain you 1 very important limitation of setTimeout in JavaScript.

Browsers including Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari, and Firefox store the delay as a 32-bit signed integer internally. This causes an integer overflow when using delays larger than 2,147,483,647 ms (about 24.8 days), resulting in the timeout being executed immediately.

function func(){
    setTimeout(()=>{
        console.log('Print hello after 2,147,483,648 milliseconds')
    }, 2147483648)
}

func() 

Expected output/ behavior for the above code should be the callback function of setTimeout should execute after 2,147,483,648 milliseconds.

But the callback function will get executed immediately because the maximum delay value in setTimeout is 2,147,483,647 milliseconds and we have provided 2,147,483,648 milliseconds as delay.

Thank you for reading this so far. This is a brief introduction on How Large Delay Value In setTimeout Acts in JavaScript.

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Thanks,
CapsCode