is there a way to pass variable inside of a function outside in react

Question

I am new to react, and I am trying to make a simple countdown app. but in react, I don't know how to give a global variable for all the functions can get assess to it. Please take a look at my code, is there anyway I can make the pause and the continue buttons work? In plain javascript I can set timer as a global variable and get access to it from another function, by that, I can call clearInterval on timer when I want, but in react I don't know how to call clearInterval for timer to pause begin function since it is restricted in the begin function block.

import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';

class Countdown extends React.Component{
    render(){
        return(
            <div>
                <button onClick={()=>begin()}>start</button>
                <button>pause</button>
                <button>continue</button>
            </div>
        );
    }
};

const begin=(props)=>{
    let count = 10;
    const timer = setInterval(countdown,1000);
    function countdown(){
        count=count-1
        if (count<0){
            clearInterval(timer);
            return; 
        }
        console.log(count)
    }
}

ReactDOM.render(<Countdown/>, document.getElementById('app'));

Answer 1

You can do like this:

class Countdown extends React.Component{
    constructor() {
        super();
        //set the initial state
        this.state = { count: 10 };
    }
    //function to change the state
    changeCount(num){
      this.setState({count:num});
    }
    render(){
        return(
            <div>
                <button onClick={()=>begin(this.changeCount.bind(this), this.state.count)}>start</button>
                <button>pause</button>
                <button>continue</button>
                <p>{this.state.count}</p>
            </div>
        );
    }
};
//callback function to change the state in component
//c is the initial count in state
const begin=(fun, c)=>{
    let count = c;
    const timer = setInterval(countdown,1000);
    function countdown(){
        count=count-1
        if (count<0){
            clearInterval(timer);
            return; 
        }
        fun(count)
        console.log(count)
    }
}

ReactDOM.render(<Countdown/>, document.getElementById('example'));

working code here