I am building a few things and one of them is a countdown timer, the countdown will never be over an hour so all I need to do is countdown minutes and seconds.

I have it partially working, but the problem is with the leading zeros. I got it to work in the seconds but not with the minutes.

Check out my example /

JavaScript

setInterval(function() {
var timer = $('span').html();
timer = timer.split(':');
var minutes = timer[0];
var seconds = timer[1];
seconds -= 1;
if (minutes < 0) return;
if (minutes < 10 && length.minutes != 2) minutes = '0' + minutes;
if (seconds < 0 && minutes != 0) {
    minutes -= 1;
    seconds = 59;
}
else if (seconds < 10 && length.seconds != 2) seconds = '0' + seconds;
    $('span').html(minutes + ':' + seconds);
}, 1000);

HTML

<span>10:10</span>

What I want to happen is the countdown timer can begin anywhere under 1 hour, it will count down with leading zeros ie in this format;

08:49 46:09

And when it reaches the countdown to simply just display:

00:00

Thanks for any input, and I don't want to use plugins, I want to learn it.

I am building a few things and one of them is a countdown timer, the countdown will never be over an hour so all I need to do is countdown minutes and seconds.

I have it partially working, but the problem is with the leading zeros. I got it to work in the seconds but not with the minutes.

Check out my example http://jsfiddle.net/cgweb87/GHNtk/

JavaScript

setInterval(function() {
var timer = $('span').html();
timer = timer.split(':');
var minutes = timer[0];
var seconds = timer[1];
seconds -= 1;
if (minutes < 0) return;
if (minutes < 10 && length.minutes != 2) minutes = '0' + minutes;
if (seconds < 0 && minutes != 0) {
    minutes -= 1;
    seconds = 59;
}
else if (seconds < 10 && length.seconds != 2) seconds = '0' + seconds;
    $('span').html(minutes + ':' + seconds);
}, 1000);

HTML

<span>10:10</span>

What I want to happen is the countdown timer can begin anywhere under 1 hour, it will count down with leading zeros ie in this format;

08:49 46:09

And when it reaches the countdown to simply just display:

00:00

Thanks for any input, and I don't want to use plugins, I want to learn it.

• javascript
• jquery
• timer

• 3 I think you want minutes.length instead of length.minutes. Same for length.seconds. Then if you reorder the statements it works perfectly: jsfiddle.net/GHNtk/1 – Felix Kling Commented Nov 7, 2011 at 0:58
• ok thank will try this, easy to make I am still learning :) – cgweb87 Commented Nov 7, 2011 at 1:03

4 Answers 4

setInterval returns an identity you can use later to clearInterval:

var interval = setInterval(function() {
    /* snip */
    $('span').html(minutes + ':' + seconds);

    if (parseInt(minutes, 10) == 0 && parseInt(seconds, 10) == 0)
        clearInterval(interval);
}, 1000);

And, to avoid the ever-increasing minutes -- 00000001:42 -- either:

1. change length.minutes to minutes.length in your prefix test.
2. cast the values to Numbers when retrieving -- var minutes = parseInt(timer[0], 10); -- and just test if (minutes < 10) ....

Taking option #2, here's an update: http://jsfiddle.net/BH8q9/

to check the length of a string, it is not

length.minutes length.seconds

it is

minutes.length seconds.length

Made a few simple changes to your code and it works as you'd like:

setInterval(function() {
    var timer = $('span').html();
    timer = timer.split(':');
    var minutes = timer[0];
    var seconds = timer[1];
    seconds -= 1;
    if (minutes < 0) return;
    if (seconds < 0 && minutes != 0) {
        minutes -= 1;
        seconds = 59;
    }
    else if (seconds < 10 && length.seconds != 2) seconds = '0' + seconds;
    if ((minutes < 10) && ((minutes+'').length < 2)) minutes = '0' + minutes;
    $('span').html(minutes + ':' + seconds);
}, 1000);

I moved the if ((minutes < 10).... line down to happen after the minutes -= 1; otherwise at 9:59, you won't get the extra 0. Also length.minutes is the wrong way around, it'd need to be minutes.length -- but to make sure it's being treated as a string (which has a length, whereas a number doesn't), I added a blank string to it and then took the length of that.. This is what ((minutes+'').length < 2 does (checks that you have the leading zero).. This is really the best way to accomplish it, but it's the closest to your existing code.

I understand that an answer has already being accepted but would like to throw in my 2c: I like to avoid extra coding whenever possible. Using Jonathan Lonowski's approach, I would improve it like:

var interval = setInterval(function() {
    var timer = $('span').html().split(':');
    //by parsing integer, I avoid all extra string processing
    var minutes = parseInt(timer[0],10);
    var seconds = parseInt(timer[1],10);
    --seconds;
    minutes = (seconds < 0) ? --minutes : minutes;
    if (minutes < 0) clearInterval(interval);
    seconds = (seconds < 0) ? 59 : seconds;
    seconds = (seconds < 10) ? '0' + seconds : seconds;
    minutes = (minutes < 10) ?  '0' + minutes : minutes;
    $('span').html(minutes + ':' + seconds);
}, 1000);