GraphQL Sent Proper Data but Variable is Undefined - node.js

Question

Hopefully I'm not overlooking something stupid here, but here's the problem.
I'm fetching this Smartsheet data using promise:
var getWorkspaces = async function(args) {
var smartsheet = client.createClient({ accessToken: "key" });
await smartsheet.workspaces.listWorkspaces()
.then(async function(workspaceList) {
var data = await workspaceList.data;
console.log("returning");
console.log(data);
return data;
})
.catch(function(error) {
console.log(error);
});
}
and this is my resolvers:
var resolvers = {
Query: {
workspaces: async () => {
var workspaceData = await getWorkspaces();
console.log("sending");
console.log(workspaceData);
return workspaceData;
}
}
};
Why is this the console output:
returning
[
{
id: 000,
name: 'nname',
accessLevel: 'ADMIN',
permalink: 'link'
},
{
id: 000,
name: 'name',
accessLevel: 'ADMIN',
permalink: 'link'
},
{
id: 000,
name: 'name',
accessLevel: 'ADMIN',
permalink: 'link'
}
]
sending
undefined
And more specifically, why is workspaceList undefined? I've been at this for hours and cannot find a solution.

Answer 1

The issue here is that your return workspaceData is within a callback function of .then(), so you're returning in the callback, not in the getWorkspaces() function. When you say .next(), the request happens asynchronously. When you use await, the current thread waits for the response and executes it without needing a callback–– a synchronous call. await implicitly calls .next(), and adding try/catch is equivalent to .catch().
var getWorkspaces = async function(args) {
try {
var smartsheet = client.createClient({ accessToken: "key" });
var workspaceList = await smartsheet.workspaces.listWorkspaces();
var data = workspaceList.data;
console.log("returning");
return data;
} catch (err) {
console.log(err);
}
}