How to use promises to simulate a synchronous for loop - node.js

I cannot get Promises to work (the way I think they should). The following code executes almost immediately. ie. does not wait the 4 seconds before logging each number to the console.
function do_nothing(a) {
return new Promise(function(accept, reject){
console.log(a)
setTimeout(accept(parseInt(a)+1), 4000);
});
}
function do_til_finish(i) {
if (parseInt(i) < 5) {
do_nothing(i)
.then(j => do_til_finish(j))
.catch(j =>{})
} else {
console.log('All done');
}
}
do_til_finish(0);
jsfiddle
What am I missing?
btw. I do not want to run the loop asynchronously as the statements will use all the memory and freeze the server.
This is not a webserver so I dont need to worry about frustrating users.
Thanks in advance

You are not using a function inside setTimeout.
try this:
function do_nothing(a) {
return new Promise(function(accept, reject){
console.log(a)
setTimeout(function(){accept(parseInt(a)+1)}, 4000);
});
}
function do_til_finish(i) {
if (parseInt(i) < 5) {
do_nothing(i)
.then(j => do_til_finish(j))
.catch(j =>{})
} else {
console.log('All done');
}
}
console.log("\n");
do_til_finish(0);

First you need to pass a function to setTimeout not to call it.
Second, you need to return a promise from do_til_finish to chain further calls.
BTW you don't need to parseInt.
function do_nothing(a) {
return new Promise(function(accept, reject){
console.log(a)
setTimeout(accept, 4000, a + 1);
});
}
function do_til_finish(i) {
if (i < 5) {
return do_nothing(i)
.then(do_til_finish)
.catch(j =>{})
} else {
console.log('All done');
}
}
console.log("\n");
do_til_finish(0);

The problem is that you used the setTimeout function without a callback and passed directly a value, wich is not working as expected. Any way the design is pretty messy I suggest you to look at async module for better asynchronous designs patterns.
function doNothing(a) {
return new Promise((resolve) => {
console.log(a);
setTimeout(() => resolve(parseInt(a, 10) + 1), 4000);
});
}
function doUntilFinish(i) {
if (parseInt(i, 10) < 5) {
doNothing(i)
.then(j => doUntilFinish(j))
.catch(err => console.log(err));
} else {
console.log('All done');
}
}
doTillFinish(0);

Related

async await with setInterval

function first(){
console.log('first')
}
function second(){
console.log('second')
}
let interval = async ()=>{
await setInterval(first,2000)
await setInterval(second,2000)
}
interval();
Imagine that I have this code above.
When I run it, first() and second() will be called at the same time; how do I call second() after first)() returns some data, for example, if first() is done, only then call second()?
Because first() in my code will be working with a big amount of data and if this 2 functions will be calling at the same time, it will be hard for the server.
How do I call second() each time when first() will return some data?
As mentioned above setInterval does not play well with promises if you do not stop it. In case you clear the interval you can use it like:
async function waitUntil(condition) {
return await new Promise(resolve => {
const interval = setInterval(() => {
if (condition) {
resolve('foo');
clearInterval(interval);
};
}, 1000);
});
}
Later you can use it like
const bar = waitUntil(someConditionHere)
You have a few problems:
Promises may only ever resolve once, setInterval() is meant to call the callback multiple times, Promises do not support this case well.
Neither setInterval(), nor the more appropriate setTimeout() return Promises, therefore, awaiting on them is pointless in this context.
You're looking for a function that returns a Promise which resolves after some times (using setTimeout(), probably, not setInterval()).
Luckily, creating such a function is rather trivial:
async function delay(ms) {
// return await for better async stack trace support in case of errors.
return await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, ms));
}
With this new delay function, you can implement your desired flow:
function first(){
console.log('first')
}
function second(){
console.log('second')
}
let run = async ()=>{
await delay(2000);
first();
await delay(2000)
second();
}
run();
setInterval doesn't play well with promises because it triggers a callback multiple times, while promise resolves once.
It seems that it's setTimeout that fits the case. It should be promisified in order to be used with async..await:
async () => {
await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(() => resolve(first()), 2000));
await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(() => resolve(second()), 2000));
}
await expression causes async to pause until a Promise is settled
so you can directly get the promise's result without await
for me, I want to initiate Http request every 1s
let intervalid
async function testFunction() {
intervalid = setInterval(() => {
// I use axios like: axios.get('/user?ID=12345').then
new Promise(function(resolve, reject){
resolve('something')
}).then(res => {
if (condition) {
// do something
} else {
clearInterval(intervalid)
}
})
}, 1000)
}
// you can use this function like
testFunction()
// or stop the setInterval in any place by
clearInterval(intervalid)
You could use an IFFE. This way you could escape the issue of myInterval not accepting Promise as a return type.
There are cases where you need setInterval, because you want to call some function unknown amount of times with some interval in between.
When I faced this problem this turned out to be the most straight-forward solution for me. I hope it help someone :)
For me the use case was that I wanted to send logs to CloudWatch but try not to face the Throttle exception for sending more than 5 logs per second. So I needed to keep my logs and send them as a batch in an interval of 1 second. The solution I'm posting here is what I ended up using.
async function myAsyncFunc(): Promise<string> {
return new Promise<string>((resolve) => {
resolve("hello world");
});
}
function myInterval(): void {
setInterval(() => {
void (async () => {
await myAsyncFunc();
})();
}, 5_000);
}
// then call like so
myInterval();
Looked through all the answers but still didn't find the correct one that would work exactly how the OP is asked. This is what I used for the same purpose:
async function waitInterval(callback, ms) {
return new Promise(resolve => {
let iteration = 0;
const interval = setInterval(async () => {
if (await callback(iteration, interval)) {
resolve();
clearInterval(interval);
}
iteration++;
}, ms);
});
}
function first(i) {
console.log(`first: ${i}`);
// If the condition below is true the timer finishes
return i === 5;
}
function second(i) {
console.log(`second: ${i}`);
// If the condition below is true the timer finishes
return i === 5;
}
(async () => {
console.log('start');
await waitInterval(first, 1000);
await waitInterval(second, 1000);
console.log('finish');
})()
In my example, I also put interval iteration count and the timer itself, just in case the caller would need to do something with it. However, it's not necessary
In my case, I needed to iterate through a list of images, pausing in between each, and then a longer pause at the end before re-looping through.
I accomplished this by combining several techniques from above, calling my function recursively and awaiting a timeout.
If at any point another trigger changes my animationPaused:boolean, my recursive function will exit.
const loopThroughImages = async() => {
for (let i=0; i<numberOfImages; i++){
if (animationPaused) {
return;
}
this.updateImage(i);
await timeout(700);
}
await timeout(1000);
loopThroughImages();
}
loopThroughImages();
Async/await do not make the promises synchronous.
To my knowledge, it's just a different syntax for return Promise and .then().
Here i rewrote the async function and left both versions, so you can see what it really does and compare.
It's in fact a cascade of Promises.
// by the way no need for async there. the callback does not return a promise, so no need for await.
function waitInterval(callback, ms) {
return new Promise(resolve => {
let iteration = 0;
const interval = setInterval(async () => {
if (callback(iteration, interval)) {
resolve();
clearInterval(interval);
}
iteration++;
}, ms);
});
}
function first(i) {
console.log(`first: ${i}`);
// If the condition below is true the timer finishes
return i === 5;
}
function second(i) {
console.log(`second: ${i}`);
// If the condition below is true the timer finishes
return i === 5;
}
// async function with async/await, this code ...
(async () => {
console.log('start');
await waitInterval(first, 1000);
await waitInterval(second, 1000);
console.log('finish');
})() //... returns a pending Promise and ...
console.log('i do not wait');
// ... is kinda identical to this code.
// still asynchronous but return Promise statements with then cascade.
(() => {
console.log('start again');
return waitInterval(first, 1000).then(() => {
return waitInterval(second, 1000).then(() => {
console.log('finish again');
});
});
})(); // returns a pending Promise...
console.log('i do not wait either');
You can see the two async functions both execute at the same time.
So using promises around intervals here is not very useful, as it's still just intervals, and promises changes nothing, and make things confusing...
As the code is calling callbacks repeatedly into an interval, this is, i think, a cleaner way:
function first(i) {
console.log(`first: ${i}`);
// If the condition below is true the timer finishes
return i === 5;
}
function second(i) {
console.log(`second: ${i}`);
// If the condition below is true the timer finishes
return i === 5;
}
function executeThroughTime(...callbacks){
console.log('start');
let callbackIndex = 0; // to track current callback.
let timerIndex = 0; // index given to callbacks
let interval = setInterval(() =>{
if (callbacks[callbackIndex](timerIndex++)){ // callback return true when it finishes.
timerIndex = 0; // resets for next callback
if (++callbackIndex>=callbacks.length){ // if no next callback finish.
clearInterval(interval);
console.log('finish');
}
}
},1000)
}
executeThroughTime(first,second);
console.log('and i still do not wait ;)');
Also, this solution execute a callback every secondes.
if the callbacks are async requests that takes more than one sec to resolve, and i can't afford for them to overlap, then, instead of doing iterative call with repetitive interval, i would get the request resolution to call the next request (through a timer if i don't want to harass the server).
Here the "recursive" task is called lTask, does pretty much the same as before, except that, as i do not have an interval anymore, i need a new timer each iteration.
// slow internet request simulation. with a Promise, could be a callback.
function simulateAsync1(i) {
console.log(`first pending: ${i}`);
return new Promise((resolve) =>{
setTimeout(() => resolve('got that first big data'), Math.floor(Math.random()*1000)+ 1000);//simulate request that last between 1 and 2 sec.
}).then((result) =>{
console.log(`first solved: ${i} ->`, result);
return i==2;
});
}
// slow internet request simulation. with a Promise, could be a callback.
function simulateAsync2(i) {
console.log(`second pending: ${i}`);
return new Promise((resolve) =>{
setTimeout(() => resolve('got that second big data'), Math.floor(Math.random()*1000) + 1000);//simulate request that last between 1 and 2 sec.
}).then((result) =>{ // promise is resolved
console.log(`second solved: ${i} ->`,result);
return i==4; // return a promise
});
}
function executeThroughTime(...asyncCallbacks){
console.log('start');
let callbackIndex = 0;
let timerIndex = 0;
let lPreviousTime = Date.now();
let lTask = () => { // timeout callback.
asyncCallbacks[callbackIndex](timerIndex++).then((result) => { // the setTimeout for the next task is set when the promise is solved.
console.log('result',result)
if (result) { // current callback is done.
timerIndex = 0;
if (++callbackIndex>=asyncCallbacks.length){//are all callbacks done ?
console.log('finish');
return;// its over
}
}
console.log('time elapsed since previous call',Date.now() - lPreviousTime);
lPreviousTime = Date.now();
//console.log('"wait" 1 sec (but not realy)');
setTimeout(lTask,1000);//redo task after 1 sec.
//console.log('i do not wait');
});
}
lTask();// no need to set a timer for first call.
}
executeThroughTime(simulateAsync1,simulateAsync2);
console.log('i do not wait');
Next step would be to empty a fifo with the interval, and fill it with web request promises...

How to make a promise based function to be executed a few times with setTimeout before giving up in node 6 (i.e. no javascript specs for async/await)

I need to retrieve the actual value from a promise based function in a node 6 environment (Azure Functions), so I used co (https://www.npmjs.com/package/co) via generators (instead of the async/await paradigm) to handle the inner promise.
I need also to retry a few times that co/promise function using setTimeout before giving up definitively.
I am currently not able to make the following code work as expected. I am not sure where is the problem, but I can not "yield from the promise returned by co", so in the end the array that is passed around the recursive levels of the stack contains promises of values (1/0) rather than the actual values.
This is the wrapper for the "promise based function" that is handled with a try/catch to make sure we actually always return either 1 or 0.
const wannabeSyncFunc = () => {
console.log("outside co...");
return co(function *(){
console.log("inside co...");
try {
console.log("yielding...");
// promise that could be rejected hence try/catch
//
// I can not change this returned promise, so I must treat it
// as a promise that could potentially be rejected
let stuff = yield Promise.resolve();
console.log("stuff?", stuff);
console.log("returning 1");
return 1;
} catch (err) {
console.log("returning 0");
return 0;
}
console.log("after try/catch...");
});
}
This is the recursive/settimeout function that is supposed to try a few times before giving up.
const retryIntervalInMillis = 50;
const wannabeRecursiveFunc = (currTimes, attemptsArray) => {
return co(function *(){
console.log("Curr attemptsArray:", attemptsArray);
console.log("Curr attemptsArray[attemptsArray.length - 1]:", attemptsArray[attemptsArray.length - 1]);
console.log("Curr Promise.resolve(attemptsArray[attemptsArray.length - 1]):", Promise.resolve(attemptsArray[attemptsArray.length - 1]));
if (attemptsArray[attemptsArray.length - 1] == Promise.resolve(1)) {
console.log("Found the solution, returning straight away!")
return attemptsArray;
}
if (currTimes <= 0) {
console.log("Expired acquiring recursion");
return attemptsArray;
}
currTimes--;
const currValue = wannabeSyncFunc();
console.log(`First: currTimes: ${currTimes} currValue: ${currValue} curr attemptsArray: ${attemptsArray}`);
attemptsArray.push(currValue);
if (currValue === 1) {
return attemptsArray;
}
console.log(`Then: currTimes: ${currTimes} curr attemptsArray: ${attemptsArray}`);
return yield setTimeout(wannabeRecursiveFunc, currTimes*retryIntervalInMillis, currTimes, attemptsArray);
// return Promise.all(attemptsArray);
});
}
I've tried to invoke this in a few different ways like:
const numberOfAttempts = 3;
let theArray = wannabeRecursiveFunc(numberOfAttempts, []);
console.log(">>>", theArray);
Or assuming wannabeRecursiveFunc to return a promise and .then after the promise trying to print theArray.
I keep seeing inside the array these elements Promise { 1 } when printing it, but I would like to see either 1 or 0, so I hope those checks before the recursion could work as expected. At the moment those check don't work I think because I am comparing Promise { 1 } with 1.
However, I am not sure this is the reason why the whole thing is not working, and I am not even sure how to fix this. I am not sure whether co is needed (even in the node.js v6 environment), and how to make this promise/setTimeout work as expected.
I think I understand your objective: invoke a function that might fail, if it fails, wait a little bit and retry it. Do all of that with promises.
Here's a couple tools:
a promisified version of setTimeout...
function timeoutPromise(ms) {
return new Promise((resolve) => {
setTimeout(resolve, ms);
});
}
timeoutPromise(1000).then(() => {
console.log('time out expired');
});
A promise-returning dummy function that sometimes fails...
function fnThatMightFail() {
return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
let fail = Math.random() < 0.40;
(fail)? reject('bad') : resolve('good');
});
}
fnThatMightFail().then(result => {
console.log(result);
}).catch(error => {
console.log(error);
});
And then, I think here's the recursive idea you're looking for. Pass in a function and a wait time between attempts, call recursively until we succeed...
function fnThatMightFail() {
return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
let fail = Math.random() < 0.40;
(fail)? reject('bad') : resolve('good');
});
}
function timeoutPromise(ms) {
return new Promise((resolve) => {
setTimeout(() => resolve(), ms);
});
}
function fnRetryer(fn, tries, wait) {
if (tries <= 0) return Promise.reject('bad');
console.log('attempting fn');
return fn().then(result => {
console.log(`success: ${result}`);
return result;
}).catch(error => {
console.log(`error: ${error}, retrying after ${wait}ms`);
return timeoutPromise(wait).then(result => {
console.log(`${wait}ms elapsed, recursing...`);
return fnRetryer(fn, tries-1, wait);
});
});
}
fnRetryer(fnThatMightFail, 5, 1000).then(result => {
console.log(`we tried (and maybe tried) and got ${result}`);
}).catch(error => {
console.log('we failed after 5 tries, waiting 1s in between each try');
});
Note that you could add a parameter for a max number of attempts, decrement that on each recursive call and then don't recurse if that gets to zero. Also note, on the recursive call, you might opt to lengthen the wait time.

NodeJS fs.appendFile not working within promise in mocha

I want to keep a log during my integration test suite. I'm testing that every 'item' is being compiled and logging how much time it took. I'm using node 4.3.
First of all I create the log file:
before(function() {
if (!fs.existsSync("./log.csv")) {
fs.writeFile("./log.csv", "Name; Time");
}
});
Then within each it block I would do this:
for (const item of items) {
it('compiles', function() {
return item.testCompile();
});
}
And item class has these methods:
testCompile() {
return this
.buildItem()
.then(result => {
// whatever testing stuff
});
}
buildItem() {
return this
.internalLogicForCompiling()
.then(result => {
// This is not appending anything
fs.appendFile("./log.csv", `${item.name}; ${result.compileTime}`);
return result;
});
}
So far the file is created but never updated... Any clue what I'm doing wrong?
PS: I assume if the file doesn't exists, fs should throw an error, however it doesn't.
Your code is generally ignoring the fact that your fs calls are asynchronous. Promises are not magic. If you use code that is asynchronous but does not use promises, you need to do more than plop that code in a promise can call it done.
The easiest way to deal with the issue would be to use fs.writeFileSync and fs.appendFileSync instead of the calls you make. Otherwise, you should write your before like this:
before(function(done) {
if (!fs.existsSync("./log.csv")) {
fs.writeFile("./log.csv", "Name; Time", done);
}
});
I've just added the done callback.
And buildItem could be something like this so that the promise it returns won't resolve before appendFile is done doing its work:
buildItem() {
return this
.internalLogicForCompiling()
.then(result => {
return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
fs.appendFile("./log.csv", `${item.name}; ${result.compileTime}`, (err) => {
if (err) {
reject(err);
return;
}
resolve(result);
});
});
});
}

Heavy task not blocking nodejs

I have to loop an array, and compute to every element a very heavy task, within several functions, but I need the whole array finished before return the callback. The problem, is that node is not blocking there, is like treating this block of code like asynchronous, cause before it gets done, the callback is returned. What am I missing?
function one(data, callback){
for(var i=0; i < data.length; i++){
result = two(data[i]);
}
callback(result)
}
function two(data){
//process
return three(data);
}
function three(data){
//heavy task
return data;
}
callback(result) is called immediately and I need it blocked in order to have the array processed. This was already moved to child process, so it is pretended to work that way.
'use strict';
function makePromise(data) {
return Promise(resolve, reject) {
//here handle data
if ( // success ) {
resolve(result);
} else {
reject(error);
}
};
}
data.map((element) => makePromise(element))
.all(restuts => {
//here results is a array
})
.catch(error => {
console.log(error);
})
You can use Promise in ES6.

What is a good pattern for "interval with timeout" using Promises

I'm writing some code to do polling for a resource every N ms which should timeout after M seconds. I want the whole thing to be promise based using Bluebird as much as possible. The solution I've come up with so far uses node's interval, cancellable bluebird promises and bluebird's timeout function.
I'm wondering if there's a better way to do timing out intervals with bluebird and promises in general? Mostly by making sure the interval stops at the point and never continues indefinitely.
var Promise = require('bluebird');
function poll() {
var interval;
return new Promise(function(resolve, reject) {
// This interval never resolves. Actual implementation could resolve.
interval = setInterval(function() {
console.log('Polling...')
}, 1000).unref();
})
.cancellable()
.catch(function(e) {
console.log('poll error:', e.name);
clearInterval(interval);
// Bubble up error
throw e;
});
}
function pollOrTimeout() {
return poll()
.then(function() {
return Promise.resolve('finished');
})
.timeout(5000)
.catch(Promise.TimeoutError, function(e) {
return Promise.resolve('timed out');
})
.catch(function(e) {
console.log('Got some other error');
throw e;
});
}
return pollOrTimeout()
.then(function(result) {
console.log('Result:', result);
});
Output:
Polling...
Polling...
Polling...
Polling...
poll error: TimeoutError
Result: timed out
I would do something like this -
function poll() {
return Promise.resolve().then(function() {
console.log('Polling...');
if (conditionA) {
return Promise.resolve();
} else if (conditionB) {
return Promise.reject("poll error");
} else {
return Promise.delay(1000).then(poll);
}
})
.cancellable()
}
Also be aware of Promise constructor anti-pattern
Rene Wooller makes a really good point:
Warning: unfortunately, recursion in javascript like this will eventually saturate the call stack and result in out of memory exceptions
Even if it doesn't exception, this is wasted space, and the risk of an exception might encourage an overlong polling delay.
I think this is important enough to prefer setInterval:
var myPromise = new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
var id = window.setInterval(() => {
try {
if (conditionA) {
window.clearInterval(id);
resolve("conditionA");
} else if (conditionB) {
throw new Error("conditionB!");
}
} catch(e) {
window.clearInterval(id);
reject(e);
}
}, 1000);
});
There are a few npm packages that address this requirement, of which I like promise-waitfor the best. It's 38 lines long and does the job.
var myPromise = waitFor(() => {
if(conditionA) return true;
if(conditionB) throw new Error("conditionB!");
return false;
});

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