So I'm new to Node.js and Im just wondering if the way I have my code setup makes sense. Im coming from a Java background so the nested callback structure is new. I have a Node program that runs a bunch of code that I broke down into different methods. The thing is that the methods need to be called in order. My code has this structure right now:
functionOne(data, callback(err) {
functionTwo(data, callback(err) {
functionThree(data, callback(err) {
functionFour(data, callback(err) {
//Code
});
});
});
});
This is very minimalistic, but is this structure ok? With Java, I'd take the return values of all the methods, then just pass them to the next function. From my understanding so far, the Java approach I just mentioned is one of the main things that Node.js was trying to eliminate. But anyway... Does that structure look ok, and is that how its intended to look? Just want to be sure that I'm not making any major errors with Node in general. Thanks!
Your code structure looks fine if you work with callback pattern.
But if you're interested in make your code cleaner and readable you would like to use Promises in your asynchronous function, so instead of pass a callback to your functions you could do something like this :
function asyncFunction (data){
return new Promise(function(resolve, reject){
// Do something with data
// Here you can call reject(error) to throw an error
resolve();
});
}
And instead of nested function callbacks you can call then method of Promise.
asyncFunction(data)
.then(function(){
// Promise resolved
// Something has been done with data
});
With Promises you can also execute async fuctions in parallel :
Promise.all([asyncFunctionA(data), asyncFunctionB(data), asyncFunctionC(data)])
.then(function(){...});
EDIT
If you need to pass values of one function to another, your code should look like this :
asyncFunctionA(data)
.then(function(dataA){
return asyncFunctionB(dataA);
})
.then(function(dataB){
return asyncFunctionC(dataB);
})
.then(function(dataC){
// ...
});
You should try to use promises to avoid your callback hell, so it could be something like these...
const Q = require('q'); // you can do a research for this module.
var myModule = {};
myModule.functionOne = (params) => {
const deferred = Q.defer(); // wait for this to complete
// body function
deferred.resolve(data); // this would be the result of this function
return deferred.promise; // data is the output on your function
}
myModule.functionTwo = (params) => {
const deferred = Q.defer(); // wait for this to complete
// body function
deferred.resolve(data); // this would be the result of this function
return deferred.promise; // data is the output on your function
}
myModule.doAll = (params) => {
myModule.functionOne(params)
.then((outputFunctionOne) => {
// this is called after functionOne ends
return myModule.functionTwo(outputFunctionOne);
})
.then((outputFunctionTwo) => {
// this is called after function 2 ends
if (outputFunctionTwo.success) {
// if everything ok, resolve the promise with the final output
deferred.resolve(outputFunctionTwo);
} else {
// reject the promise with an error message
deferred.reject('error');
}
})
.fail((err) => {
// this is call if the promise is rejected or an exception is thrown
console.log(err); // TODO: Error handling
})
.done();
}
module.exports = myModule;
You can Chain as many promises as you want really easily, that way you get rid of the callback hell. Best part, you can do promises on Javascript or Node.js
Reference Link https://github.com/kriskowal/q
Hope this helps
Most of the other answers give Promise/A as the answer to your callback woes. This is correct, and will work for you. However I'd like to give you another option, if you are willing to drop javascript as your working language.
Introducing Iced Coffee, a branch of the CoffeeScript project.
With Iced Coffee you would write:
await functionOne data, defer err
await functionTwo data, defer err2
await functionThree data, defer err3
//etc
This then compiles to the CoffeeScript:
functionOne data, (err) ->
functionTwo data, (err2) ->
functionThree data, (err3) ->
//etc
Which then compiles to your Javascript.
functionOne(data, callback(err) {
functionTwo(data, callback(err2) {
functionThree(data, callback(err3) {
//etc
});
});
});
Related
How to handle multiple calls to the same function when its returning nothing. I need to wait untill all calls are finished so i can call another function.
For now I'm using Promise.all() but it doesn't seem right:
Promise.all(table_statements.map(i => insertValues(i)))
.then(function(result) {
readNodeData(session, nodes);
})
.catch(function() {
console.log(err);
})
function insertValues(statement) {
return new Promise((res, rej) => {
database.query(statement, function (err, result) {
if (err) {
rej(err)
}
else{
console.log("Daten in Tabelle geschrieben")
res(); // basically returning nothing
}
});
});
}
This writes data to a database in multiple statements, i need to wait untill all are finished.
Is this actually the "right" way to do it? I mean... it works, but i have the feeling it's not how you are supposed to do it.
Using Promise.all for your case is a good call, since it returns a Promise, when all the promises passed as an iterable are resolved. See the docs.
However, for brevity and readability, try converting your insertValues into async-await function as follows. This tutorial would be a great place to start learning about async functions in JavaScript.
// async insertValues function - for re-usability (and perhaps easy unit testing),
// I've passed the database as an argument to the function
async function insertValues(database, statement) {
try {
await database.query(statement);
} catch (error) {
console.error(error);
}
}
// using the insertValues() function
async function updateDatabase(database) {
try {
// I am using 'await' here to get the resolved value.
// I'm not sure this is the direction you want to take.
const results = await Promise.all(
tableStatements.map(statement => insertValues(database, statement))
);
// do stuff with 'results'.. I'm just going to log them to the console
console.log(results);
} catch (error) {
console.error(error);
}
}
Here, insertValues() function doesn't return any value. Its operation on the database is entirely dependent on the query statement passed to it. I wrapped it within a try-catch block so as to catch any errors that might arise while performing the operation (s) above. More details on handling errors using try-catch can be found here.
Your promisified write to database looks ok, so we can update code from another part.
Let's rewrite it a little to use async/await and try/catch.
(async() => {
const promisifiedStatements = table_statements.map(i => insertValues(i));
try {
await Promise.all(promisifiedStatements);
readNodeData(session, nodes);
} catch(e){
console.log(e)
}
})();
I use here IIFE to use await behaviour.
I'm in the process of building a small Library that relies heavily on asynchronicity and I'm trying to support NodeJs callback style, Promises and async/await with minimal duplication of functional code.
So, as example take the following ( it doesn't matters what it does)
class Someclass{
constructor(){}
asyncMethod(someData, cb){
var commonVar = ''
if (cb) { // ******* Callback Requested
doSomething()
var result=usingCallbacks()
if (!result) cb('Error')
cb(null, result)
} else{ // ******** we should use a promise
return new Promise((resolve,reject) => {
doSomething()
var result=usingPromises()
if (!result) reject(err)
resolve(result)
})
}
}
}
So i'm stuck on how to build the async/awit part here. Any ideas?
Nothing else is required since await can await anything that returns a Promise (or something promise-like).
In other words, this should "just work":
async useLibFn() {
await someclass.asyncMethod('foo');
}
Under the covers, async/await are just syntactic sugar for promises.
async causes a function to always return a promise. Basically equivalent to:
function someFn() {
return new Promise(function(resolve, reject) {
try {
// actual fn body
} catch (ex) {
reject(ex);
}
});
}
await takes some expression and resolves it asynchronously. If the value is promisey, it waits for the promise to resolve (calls then()). Otherwise, it resolves with the value on the next tick. Basically equivalent to:
Promise.resolve(rval).then(...)
I have this function which gets some data from my database but i'm having a trouble calling the function and getting the proper response
function getEvents()
{
var x = [];
var l = dbCollection['e'].find({}).forEach(function(y) {
x.push(y);
});
return x;
});
and another function which calls this function but it always returns undefined.
How can i make the function wait till mongoose has finished filling up the array?
Thanks for the help! My life
dbCollection['e'].find is called non-blocking way so you are returning x before filling. You need to use callbacks or some mongoose promises. You can get all returning values from database like following snippet
function getEvents(callback) {
dbCollection['e'].find({}, function(error, results) {
// results is array.
// if you need to filter results you can do it here
return callback(error, results);
})
}
Whenever you need to call getEvents function you need to pass a callback to it.
getEvents(function(error, results) {
console.log(results); // you have results here
})
You should read mongoose docs for how queries work.
There is also support for promises in mongoose. You can check this url for more information about promises.
The solution proposed by #orhankutlu should work fine.
I will give another solution using promise. You can choose one between these two solutions depending on your style of programming.
Solution using promise:
function getEvents() {
return new Promise(function(resolve, reject){
dbCollection['e'].find({}, function(error, results) {
if (error) return reject(error);
var x = [];
results.forEach(function(y){
x.push(y);
});
// forEach() is a blocking call,
// so the promise will be resolved only
// after the forEach completes
return resolve(x);
});
});
};
Calling getEvents():
getEvents().then(function(result){
console.log(result); //should print 'x'
}).catch(function(err){
// Handle error here in case the promise is rejected
});
I will encourage you to try both the approaches, ie, using callbacks and using promises. Hope you find it useful!
I'm using bluebird to init various type of db connections.
// fileA.js
Promise.all(allConnectionPromises)
.then(function (theModels) {
// then i want to do module.exports here
// console.log here so the expected output
module.exports = theModels
})
So that I can require that file above from another file. however if I do that, i get {}.
let A = require('./fileA') // i get {} here
Any idea how to do this?
You can't magically make an async operation into a synchronous operation in Javascript. So, an async operation will require async coding techniques (callbacks or promises). The same is true in regular coding as in module startup/initialization.
The usual design pattern for dealing with this issue is to give your module a constructor function that you pass a callback to and when you call that constructor function, it will call the callback when the async result is done and then any further code that uses that async result must be in that callback.
Or, since you're already using promises, you can just export a promise that the calling code can use.
// fileA.js
module.exports = Promise.all(allConnectionPromises);
Then, in code that uses this:
require('./fileA').then(function(theModels) {
// access theModels here
}, function(err) {
console.log(err);
});
Note, when doing it like this, the exported promise serves as a convenient cache for theModels too since every other module that does require('./fileA') will get the same promise back and thus the same resolved value without re-executing the code behind getting the models.
Though I think the promises version is probably cleaner especially since you're already using promises within the module, here's what the constructor version would look like for comparison:
// fileA.js
var p = Promise.all(allConnectionPromises);
module.exports = function(callback) {
p.then(function(theModels) {
callback(null, theModels);
}, function(err) {
callback(err);
});
}
Then, in code that uses this:
require('./fileA')(function(err, theModels) {
if (err) {
console.log(err);
} else {
// use theModels here
}
});
I'm trying to promisify a 3rd party library that doesn't use the callback(err, data) pattern. Instead they always return callback(data) and throw on errors.
Promise.promisifyAll(horse);
var p = Promise.defer();
horse.drinkAsync()
.error(function(data)
{
p.fulfill(data);
})
.catch(function (err)
{
console.error('error occured', err);
});
return p.promise;
What is a nice way to wrap such a behavior with promises and still have it look ok and allow to catch the thrown error? The catch clause doesn't trigger and the application crashes.
From Bluebird 2.1 on, you can now customize promisifyAll with a custom promisification handler:
function noErrPromisifier(originalMethod){
return function promisified() {
var args = [].slice.call(arguments); // might want to use smarter
var self = this // promisification if performance critical
return new Promise(function(resolve,reject){
args.push(resolve);
originalMethod.apply(self,args); // call with arguments
});
};
}
var horse = Promise.promisifyAll(require("horse"), {
promisifier: noErrPromisifier
});
horse.drinkAsync().then(function(data){
// Can use here, ow promisified normally.
});
If the original method throws asynchronously, there is really no way around wrapping it in a domain, although I've never seen a library that acts that poorly.