Using javascript how to break the while loop after a set time?

Question

I have a while loop which looks like this:

while(s1 != "#EANF#")
{
iimPlay("CODE:REFRESH");
iimPlay("CODE:TAG POS=1 TYPE=* ATTR=TXT:Contacted:* EXTRACT=TXT")
var s1 = iimGetLastExtract();
}

it will refresh the web page until it finds what it wants. However sometimes it becomes an infinite loop and I want to simply set a timer so that it would break the while loop and carry on. I tried looking at settimeout but couldn't figure out how to do it. I want this while loop to just give up refreshing the web page if it doesn't find what it wants after lets say 3 minutes.

Answer 1

EDIT: This may not be the correct answer...please see comments

---

You can use a flag that is flipped after 3 minutes in your while loop condition:

var keepGoing = true;
setTimeout(function() {
    // this will be executed in 3 minutes
    // causing the following while loop to exit
    keepGoing = false;
}, 180000); // 3 minutes in milliseconds

while(s1 != "#EANF#" && keepGoing === true)
{
iimPlay("CODE:REFRESH");
iimPlay("CODE:TAG POS=1 TYPE=* ATTR=TXT:Contacted:* EXTRACT=TXT")
var s1 = iimGetLastExtract();
}