javascript using global variables

Question

can't seem to get this to work.

 var current_times = new Date();
 var future_times = new Date();
 function time(){
 current_times = current_times.setMinutes(current_times.getMinutes());
 future_times = future_times.setMinutes(future_times.getMinutes() + 1); 
 }

error im getting is: current_times.getMinutes is not a function

note sure this helps, but the time function is called from a function which is initiated on body load.

• kqnr: There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with this code. What browser are you using? As I anticipated, I cannot reproduce the problem in Chrome.
• Khez: 1. The specific code you pasted works. 2. Don't setMinute to getMinutes(). Why would you do that?!
• Hamish: post a complete non-working code sample.

Answer 1

The problem is that setMinutes returns a number, not a Date object.

The function will work the first time you call it, but on the second call current_times and future_times will be numbers, and hence won't have the getMinutes function. Since setMinutes() modifies the Date object instead of producing a new one, the solution is to not reassign your variables.

---

Furthermore, if I understand your intentions correctly, your code can be simplified to:

var current_times, future_times = new Date();
function time() {
 current_times = new Date();
 future_times.setMinutes(current_times.getMinutes() + 1);
}

• Khez: good catch, I was thinking that maybe he was declaring those variables in a namespace and nullifying their globalness.

Answer 2

the code is right but as Box9 typed code

you must assign variables inside the function to be like that'

function time() {
 var current_times = new Date();
 var future_times = new Date();
 current_times = current_times.setMinutes(current_times.getMinutes());
 future_times = future_times.setMinutes(future_times.getMinutes() + 1); 
 document.write(current_times);
 document.write("<br>"+future_times);
}