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getTimer()

Returns

The number of milliseconds that have elapsed since the Player started running.

Description

The getTimer( ) function indicates how long the Player has been running, in milliseconds. The getTimer( ) function returns a single value, per Player instance, for all movies in the Player. Loading a new .swf does not reset the timer. Prior to Flash 6, developers used multiple calls to getTimer( ) to govern the timed execution of a block of code, or to add time-based features to a movie, such as a countdown in a video game. As of Flash 6, timed code execution should be implemented using setInterval( ).

The following code shows a countdown timer function, doCountdown( ), that displays the seconds remaining on screen. For a more sophisticated CountDown class that uses setInterval( ), see Function.apply( ).

function doCountdown (countAmount) {
  // Record the starting time, in milliseconds
  var startTime = getTimer();
  // Initialize a variable to keep track of how much time has passed
  var elapsed = 0;
  // Create a text field to display the countdown time in seconds
  this.createTextField("counterOutput_txt", 1, 0, 0, 200, 20);
   
  // With each frame that passes...
  this.onEnterFrame = function () {
    // ...check how much time has passed
    elapsed = getTimer() - startTime;
    // If the elapsed time is less than the length of our countdown...
    if (elapsed < countAmount * 1000) {
      // ...set the text field to show the number of seconds left
      this.counterOutput_txt.text = countAmount - Math.floor(elapsed / 1000);
    } else {
      // ...otherwise, our countdown is done, so tell the user
      this.counterOutput_txt.text = "Time's Up!";
      // Stop checking the time
      delete this.onEnterFrame;
    }
  }
}
   
// Usage:
doCountDown(60);

Example

To determine the number of full seconds (rather than milliseconds) that have elapsed during a movie, divide the return value of getTimer( ) by 1000, and trim off the decimal portion with either Math.floor( ), Math.round( ), or Math.ceil( ). For example:

numSeconds = Math.floor(getTimer()/1000);

The following code loops between two frames until a movie has been playing for more than 10 seconds, after which it breaks out of the timeline loop:

now = getTimer();
if (now > 10000) {
  play();
} else {
  gotoAndPlay(_currentframe - 1);
}

The following code does the same thing using setInterval( ):

stop();
intID = setInterval(function () { play(); clearInterval(intID); }, 1000);

See Also

clearInterval( ), Date( ), the Date class, setInterval( )

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