Calling a function every 60 seconds

Question

If you don't care if the code within the timer may take longer than your interval, use setInterval():

setInterval(function, delay)

That fires the function passed in as first parameter over and over.

A better approach is, to use setTimeout along with a self-executing anonymous function:

(function(){
    // do some stuff
    setTimeout(arguments.callee, 60000);
})();

that guarantees, that the next call is not made before your code was executed. I used arguments.callee in this example as function reference. It's a better way to give the function a name and call that within setTimeout because arguments.callee is deprecated in ecmascript 5.

use the

setInterval(function, 60000);

EDIT : (In case if you want to stop the clock after it is started)

Script section

<script>
var int=self.setInterval(function, 60000);
</script>

and HTML Code

<!-- Stop Button -->
<a href="#" onclick="window.clearInterval(int);return false;">Stop</a>

A better use of jAndy's answer to implement a polling function that polls every interval seconds, and ends after timeout seconds.

function pollFunc(fn, timeout, interval) {
    var startTime = (new Date()).getTime();
    interval = interval || 1000;

    (function p() {
        fn();
        if (((new Date).getTime() - startTime ) <= timeout)  {
            setTimeout(p, interval);
        }
    })();
}

pollFunc(sendHeartBeat, 60000, 1000);

UPDATE

As per the comment, updating it for the ability of the passed function to stop the polling:

function pollFunc(fn, timeout, interval) {
    var startTime = (new Date()).getTime();
    interval = interval || 1000,
    canPoll = true;

    (function p() {
        canPoll = ((new Date).getTime() - startTime ) <= timeout;
        if (!fn() && canPoll)  { // ensures the function exucutes
            setTimeout(p, interval);
        }
    })();
}

pollFunc(sendHeartBeat, 60000, 1000);

function sendHeartBeat(params) {
    ...
    ...
    if (receivedData) {
        // no need to execute further
        return true; // or false, change the IIFE inside condition accordingly.
    }
}

In jQuery you can do like this.

function random_no(){
     var ran=Math.random();
     jQuery('#random_no_container').html(ran);
}
           
window.setInterval(function(){
       /// call your function here
      random_no();
}, 6000);  // Change Interval here to test. For eg: 5000 for 5 sec

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<div id="random_no_container">
      Hello. Here you can see random numbers after every 6 sec
</div>

setInterval(fn,time)

is the method you're after.