The title is confusing, sorry.
I need to look at the contents of a promise for a subsequent promise.
See my previous thread for context: How to sequentially handle asynchronous results from API?
I have working code below, and I annotated my problem:
var promises = [];
while (count) {
var promise = rp(options);
promises.push(promise);
// BEFORE NEXT PROMISE, I NEED TO GET ID OF AN ELEMENT IN THIS PROMISE'S DATA
// AND THEN CHANGE 'OPTIONS'
}
Promise.all(promises).then(values => {
for (var i = 0; i < values; i++) {
for (var j = 0; j < values[i].length; j++) {
results.push(values[i][j].text);
}
}
return res.json(results);
}, function(reason) {
trace(reason);
return res.send('Error');
});
This is a perfect example of how promises can be chained, because the result of then is a new promise.
while (count) {
var promise = rp(options);
promises.push(promise.then(function(result) {
result.options = modify(result.options); // as needed
return result.options;
});
}
In this way, each promise given to Promise.all can be preprocessed.
If one promise depends upon another (e.g. it can't be executed until the prior one has finished and provided some data), then you need to chain your promises. There is no "reaching into a promise to get some data". If you want its result, you wait for it with .then().
rp(options).then(function(data) {
// only here is the data from the first promise available
// that you can then launch the next promise operation using it
});
If you're trying to do this sequence count times (which is what your code implies), then you can create a wrapper function and call itself from the completion of each promise until the count is reached.
function run(iterations) {
var count = 0;
var options = {...}; // set up first options
var results = []; // accumulate results here
function next() {
return rp(options).then(function(data) {
++count;
if (count < iterations) {
// add anything to the results array here
// modify options here for the next run
// do next iteration
return next();
} else {
// done with iterations
// return any accumulated results here to become
// the final resolved value of the original promise
}
});
}
return next();
}
// sample usage
run(10).then(function(results) {
// process results here
}, function(err) {
// process error here
});
Problem 1: only one API request is allowed at a given time, so the real network requests are queued while there's one that has not been completed yet. An app can call the API level anytime and expecting a promise in return. When the API call is queued, the promise for the network request would be created at some point in the future - what to return to the app? That's how it can be solved with a deferred "proxy" promise:
var queue = [];
function callAPI (params) {
if (API_available) {
API_available = false;
return doRealNetRequest(params).then(function(data){
API_available = true;
continueRequests();
return data;
});
} else {
var deferred = Promise.defer();
function makeRequest() {
API_available = false;
doRealNetRequest(params).then(function(data) {
deferred.resolve(data);
API_available = true;
continueRequests();
}, deferred.reject);
}
queue.push(makeRequest);
return deferred.promise;
}
}
function continueRequests() {
if (queue.length) {
var makeRequest = queue.shift();
makeRequest();
}
}
Problem 2: some API calls are debounced so that the data to be sent is accumulated over time and then is sent in a batch when a timeout is reached. The app calling the API is expecting a promise in return.
var queue = null;
var timeout = 0;
function callAPI2(data) {
if (!queue) {
queue = {data: [], deferred: Promise.defer()};
}
queue.data.push(data);
clearTimeout(timeout);
timeout = setTimeout(processData, 10);
return queue.deferred.promise;
}
function processData() {
callAPI(queue.data).then(queue.deferred.resolve, queue.deferred.reject);
queue = null;
}
Since deferred is considered an anti-pattern, (see also When would someone need to create a deferred?), the question is - is it possible to achieve the same things without a deferred (or equivalent hacks like new Promise(function (resolve, reject) {outerVar = [resolve, reject]});), using the standard Promise API?
Promises for promises that are yet to be created
…are easy to build by chaining a then invocation with the callback that creates the promise to a promise represents the availability to create it in the future.
If you are making a promise for a promise, you should never use the deferred pattern. You should use deferreds or the Promise constructor if and only if there is something asynchronous that you want to wait for, and it does not already involve promises. In all other cases, you should compose multiple promises.
When you say
When the API call is queued, the promise for the network request would be created at some point in the future
then you should not create a deferred that you can later resolve with the promise once it is created (or worse, resolve it with the promises results once the promise settles), but rather you should get a promise for the point in the future at which the network reqest will be made. Basically you're going to write
return waitForEndOfQueue().then(makeNetworkRequest);
and of course we're going to need to mutate the queue respectively.
var queue_ready = Promise.resolve(true);
function callAPI(params) {
var result = queue_ready.then(function(API_available) {
return doRealNetRequest(params);
});
queue_ready = result.then(function() {
return true;
});
return result;
}
This has the additional benefit that you will need to explicitly deal with errors in the queue. Here, every call returns a rejected promise once one request failed (you'll probably want to change that) - in your original code, the queue just got stuck (and you probably didn't notice).
The second case is a bit more complicated, as it does involve a setTimeout call. This is an asynchronous primitive that we need to manually build a promise for - but only for the timeout, and nothing else. Again, we're going to get a promise for the timeout, and then simply chain our API call to that to get the promise that we want to return.
function TimeoutQueue(timeout) {
var data = [], timer = 0;
this.promise = new Promise(resolve => {
this.renew = () => {
clearTimeout(timer);
timer = setTimeout(resolve, timeout);
};
}).then(() => {
this.constructor(timeout); // re-initialise
return data;
});
this.add = (datum) => {
data.push(datum);
this.renew();
return this.promise;
};
}
var queue = new TimeoutQueue(10);
function callAPI2(data) {
return queue.add(data).then(callAPI);
}
You can see here a) how the debouncing logic is completely factored out of callAPI2 (which might not have been necessary but makes a nice point) and b) how the promise constructor only concerns itself with the timeout and nothing else. It doesn't even need to "leak" the resolve function like a deferred would, the only thing it makes available to the outside is that renew function which allows extending the timer.
When the API call is queued, the promise for the network request would
be created at some point in the future - what to return to the app?
Your first problem can be solved with promise chaining. You don't want to execute a given request until all prior requests have finished and you want to execute them serially in order. This is exactly the design pattern for promise chaining. You can solve that one like this:
var callAPI = (function() {
var p = Promise.resolve();
return function(params) {
// construct a promise that chains to prior callAPI promises
var returnP = p.then(function() {
return doRealNetRequest(params);
});
// make sure the promise we are chaining to does not abort chaining on errors
p = returnP.then(null, function(err) {
// handle rejection locally for purposes of continuing chaining
return;
});
// return the new promise
return returnP;
}
})();
In this solution, a new promise is actually created immediately with .then() so you can return that promise immediately - there is no need to create a promise in the future. The actual call to doRealNetRequest() is chained to this retrurned .then() promise by returning its value in the .then() handler. This works because, the callback we provide to .then() is not called until some time in the future when the prior promises in the chain have resolved, giving us an automatic trigger to execute the next one in the chain when the prior one finishes.
This implementation assumes that you want queued API calls to continue even after one returns an error. The extra few lines of code around the handle rejection comment are there to make sure the chain continues even where a prior promise rejects. Any rejection is returned back to the caller as expected.
Here's a solution to your second one (what you call debounce).
the question is - is it possible to achieve the same things without a
deferred (or equivalent hacks like new Promise(function (resolve,
reject) {outerVar = [resolve, reject]});), using the standard Promise
API?
As far as I know, the debouncer type of problem requires a little bit of a hack to expose the ability to trigger the resolve/reject callbacks somehow from outside the promise executor. It can be done a little cleaner than you propose by exposing a single function that is within the promise executor function rather than directly exposing the resolve and reject handlers.
This solution creates a closure to store private state that can be used to manage things from one call to callAPI2() to the next.
To allow code at an indeterminate time in the future to trigger the final resolution, this creates a local function within the promise executor function (which has access to the resolve and reject functions) and then shares that to the higher (but still private) scope so it can be called from outside the promise executor function, but not from outside of callAPI2.
var callAPI2 = (function() {
var p, timer, trigger, queue = [];
return function(data) {
if (!p) {
p = new Promise(function(resolve) {
// share completion function to a higher scope
trigger = function() {
resolve(queue);
// reinitialize for future calls
p = null;
queue = [];
}
}).then(callAPI);
}
// save data and reset timer
queue.push(data);
clearTimeout(timer);
setTimeout(trigger, 10);
return p;
}
})();
You can create a queue, which resolves promises in the order placed in queue
window.onload = function() {
(function(window) {
window.dfd = {};
that = window.dfd;
that.queue = queue;
function queue(message, speed, callback, done) {
if (!this.hasOwnProperty("_queue")) {
this._queue = [];
this.done = [];
this.res = [];
this.complete = false;
this.count = -1;
};
q = this._queue,
msgs = this.res;
var arr = Array.prototype.concat.apply([], arguments);
q.push(arr);
msgs.push(message);
var fn = function(m, s, cb, d) {
var j = this;
if (cb) {
j.callback = cb;
}
if (d) {
j.done.push([d, j._queue.length])
}
// alternatively `Promise.resolve(j)`, `j` : `dfd` object
// `Promise` constructor not necessary here,
// included to demonstrate asynchronous processing or
// returned results
return new Promise(function(resolve, reject) {
// do stuff
setTimeout(function() {
div.innerHTML += m + "<br>";
resolve(j)
}, s || 0)
})
// call `cb` here, interrupting queue
.then(cb ? j.callback.bind(j, j._queue.length) : j)
.then(function(el) {
console.log("queue.length:", q.length, "complete:", el.complete);
if (q.length > 1) {
q.splice(0, 1);
fn.apply(el, q[0]);
return el
} else {
el._queue = [];
console.log("queue.length:", el._queue.length
, "complete:", (el.complete = !el._queue.length));
always(promise(el), ["complete", msgs])
};
return el
});
return j
}
, promise = function(t) {
++t.count;
var len = t._queue.length,
pending = len + " pending";
return Promise.resolve(
len === 1
? fn.apply(t, t._queue[0]) && pending
: !(t.complete = len === 0) ? pending : t
)
}
, always = function(elem, args) {
if (args[0] === "start") {
console.log(elem, args[0]);
} else {
elem.then(function(_completeQueue) {
console.log(_completeQueue, args);
// call any `done` callbacks passed as parameter to `.queue()`
Promise.all(_completeQueue.done.map(function(d) {
return d[0].call(_completeQueue, d[1])
}))
.then(function() {
console.log(JSON.stringify(_completeQueue.res, null, 2))
})
})
}
};
always(promise(this), ["start", message, q.length]);
return window
};
}(window));
window
.dfd.queue("chain", 1000)
.dfd.queue("a", 1000)
.dfd.queue("b", 2000)
.dfd.queue("c", 2000, function callback(n) {
console.log("callback at queue index ", n, this);
return this
}, function done(n) {
console.log("all done callback attached at queue index " + n)
})
.dfd.queue("do", 2000)
.dfd.queue("other", 2000)
.dfd.queue("stuff", 2000);
for (var i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
window.dfd.queue(i, 1000)
};
window.dfd.queue.apply(window.dfd, ["test 1", 5000]);
window.dfd.queue(["test 2", 1000]);
var div = document.getElementsByTagName("div")[0];
var input = document.querySelector("input");
var button = document.querySelector("button");
button.onclick = function() {
window.dfd.queue(input.value, 0);
input.value = "";
}
}
<input type="text" />
<button>add message</button>
<br>
<div></div>
I have a small problem, this script works perfectly, with one problem, the "runTenant" method is not returning a promise (that needs resolving from "all()".
This code:
Promise.resolve(runTenant(latest)).then(function() {
end();
});
Calls this code:
function runTenant(cb) {
return new Promise(function() {
//global var
if (!Tenant) {
loadCoreModels();
Tenant = bookshelf.core.bs.model('Tenant');
}
new Tenant().fetchAll()
.then(function(tenants) {
if (tenants.models.length == 0) {
return;
} else {
async.eachSeries(tenants.models, function(tenant, next) {
var account = tenant.attributes;
Promise.resolve(db_tenant.config(account)).then(function(knex_tenant_config) {
if (knex_tenant_config) {
db_tenant.invalidateRequireCacheForFile('knex');
var knex_tenant = require('knex')(knex_tenant_config);
var knex_pending = cb(knex_tenant);
Promise.resolve(knex_pending).then(function() {
next(null, null);
});
} else {
next(null, null);
}
});
});
};
});
});
}
The code from runTenant is working correctly however it stalls and does not proceed to "end()" because the promise from "runTenant(latest)" isn't being resolved.
As if it weren't apparent, I am horrible at promises. Still working on getting my head around them.
Many thanks for any help/direction!
You should not use the Promise constructor at all here (and basically, not anywhere else either), even if you made it work it would be an antipattern. You've never resolved that promise - notice that the resolve argument to the Promise constructor callback is a very different function than Promise.resolve.
And you should not use the async library if you have a powerful promise library like Bluebird at hand.
As if it weren't apparent, I am horrible at promises.
Maybe you'll want to have a look at my rules of thumb for writing promise functions.
Here's what your function should look like:
function runTenant(cb) {
//global var
if (!Tenant) {
loadCoreModels();
Tenant = bookshelf.core.bs.model('Tenant');
}
return new Tenant().fetchAll().then(function(tenants) {
// if (tenants.models.length == 0) {
// return;
// } else
// In case there are no models, the loop iterates zero times, which makes no difference
return Promise.each(tenants.models, function(tenant) {
var account = tenant.attributes;
return db_tenant.config(account).then(function(knex_tenant_config) {
if (knex_tenant_config) {
db_tenant.invalidateRequireCacheForFile('knex');
var knex_tenant = require('knex')(knex_tenant_config);
return cb(knex_tenant); // can return a promise
}
});
});
});
}
Your promise in runTenant function is never resolved. You must call resolve or reject function to resolve promise:
function runTenant() {
return new Promise(function(resolve, reject) {
// somewhere in your code
if (err) {
reject(err);
} else {
resolve();
}
});
});
And you shouldn't pass cb in runTenant function, use promises chain:
runTenant()
.then(latest)
.then(end)
.catch(function(err) {
console.log(err);
});
You need to return all the nested promises. I can't run this code, so this isn't a drop it fix. But hopefully, it helps you understand what is missing.
function runTenant(cb) {
//global var
if (!Tenant) {
loadCoreModels();
Tenant = bookshelf.core.bs.model('Tenant');
}
return new Tenant().fetchAll() //added return
.then(function (tenants) {
if (tenants.models.length == 0) {
return;
} else {
var promises = []; //got to collect the promises
tenants.models.each(function (tenant, next) {
var account = tenant.attributes;
var promise = Promise.resolve(db_tenant.config(account)).then(function (knex_tenant_config) {
if (knex_tenant_config) {
db_tenant.invalidateRequireCacheForFile('knex');
var knex_tenant = require('knex')(knex_tenant_config);
var knex_pending = cb(knex_tenant);
return knex_pending; //return value that you want the whole chain to resolve to
}
});
promises.push(promise); //add promise to collection
});
return Promise.all(promises); //make promise from all promises
}
});
}
I need to wait until all promises are resolved or rejected and only then execute a callback. It seems that the current implementation of Q triggers a callback as soon as one promise is rejected, here is the test:
var ps = [];
var d1 = $q.defer();
var d2 = $q.defer();
ps.push(d1.promise, d2.promise);
setTimeout(function () {
d1.reject()
}, 2000)
setTimeout(function () {
d2.resolve()
}, 5000)
$q.all(ps).then(function () {
// is not triggered
}).catch(function () {
//triggered after 2000 ms, I need this triggered after 5000ms
})
How can I achieve what I want?
You can use $q.allSettled() instead of $q.all() if you want to know when all the promises have finished (either fulfilled or rejected).
If you then want to know which promises were rejected, you will have to iterate through the returned results to query which ones were rejected. The Q doc has an example usage for $q.allSettled().
Copied from the Q documentation:
Q.allSettled(promises)
.then(function (results) {
results.forEach(function (result) {
if (result.state === "fulfilled") {
var value = result.value;
} else {
var reason = result.reason;
}
});
});
I'm using a for each to process a list and i want that element n to be executed only when element n-1 is over:
var elements = ["stuff1", "stuff2", "stuff3"];
elements.forEach(function(element){
someAsyncFunction(element, function(){
console.log('do more stuff');
});
});
I need that they wait for each other and execute in the right order.
EDIT : I bumped into process.nextTick(), but I'm not sure if it guarantees the waiting and order.
Just store the elements in an array exactly the same way as you did in your question. Then use elements.shift() to retrieve and remove the first element.
var elements = ["stuff1", "stuff2", "stuff3"];
(function next () {
if (!elements.length) {
return;
}
var element = elements.shift();
someAsyncFunction(element, function (err, result) {
…
next();
});
})();
A nice way is to make use of a promise library like Q or Bluebird and then implement a promiseWhile like this.
var Promise = require('bluebird');
var promiseWhile = function(condition, action) {
var resolver = Promise.defer();
var loop = function() {
if (!condition()) return resolver.resolve();
return Promise.cast(action())
.then(loop)
.catch(resolver.reject);
};
process.nextTick(loop);
return resolver.promise;
};
Usage:
var sum = 0,
stop = 10;
promiseWhile(function() {
// Condition for stopping
return sum < stop;
}, function() {
// Action to run, should return a promise
return new Promise(function(resolve, reject) {
// Arbitrary 250ms async method to simulate async process
// In real usage it could just be a normal async event that
// returns a Promise.
setTimeout(function() {
sum++;
// Print out the sum thus far to show progress
console.log(sum);
resolve();
}, 250);
});
}).then(function() {
// Notice we can chain it because it's a Promise,
// this will run after completion of the promiseWhile Promise!
console.log("Done");
});