how do i create a non-blocking asynchronous function in node.js?

Question

How do I create a non-blocking asynchronous function? Below is what I'm trying to achieve but my program is still blocking...

var sys = require("sys");

function doSomething() {
  sys.puts("why does this block?");
  while(true);
}

setTimeout(doSomething,0);
setTimeout(doSomething,0);
setTimeout(doSomething,0);

sys.puts("main");

Answer 1

setTimeout will not create a new thread, so the browser will still hang at the infinite loop.

You need to rethink your program structure.

Answer 2

You need to run your blocking function in a separate process.

This module can help: http://github.com/cramforce/node-worker

Answer 3

This line:

while(true);

isn't "blocking", it's just busy, forever.

Answer 4

If you don't want to use the WebWorker API / node-worker, which is still very alpha, just create an additional node program and communicate via TCP or HTTP.

This allows you to dispatch your work as HTTP calls or raw TCP data and asynchronously wait for the HTTP response / incoming TCP answer.

Note however, this is only appropriate if your task is easily serializable.