18 Haziran 2019

Async/await

There’s a special syntax to work with promises in a more comfortable fashion, called “async/await”. It’s surprisingly easy to understand and use.

Async functions

Let’s start with the async keyword. It can be placed before a function, like this:

async function f() {
  return 1;
}

The word “async” before a function means one simple thing: a function always returns a promise. Even If a function actually returns a non-promise value, prepending the function definition with the “async” keyword directs JavaScript to automatically wrap that value in a resolved promise.

For instance, the code above returns a resolved promise with the result of 1, let’s test it:

async function f() {
  return 1;
}

f().then(alert); // 1

…We could explicitly return a promise, that would be the same as:

async function f() {
  return Promise.resolve(1);
}

f().then(alert); // 1

So, async ensures that the function returns a promise, and wraps non-promises in it. Simple enough, right? But not only that. There’s another keyword, await, that works only inside async functions, and it’s pretty cool.

Await

The syntax:

// works only inside async functions
let value = await promise;

The keyword await makes JavaScript wait until that promise settles and returns its result.

Here’s an example with a promise that resolves in 1 second:

async function f() {

  let promise = new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    setTimeout(() => resolve("done!"), 1000)
  });

  let result = await promise; // wait till the promise resolves (*)

  alert(result); // "done!"
}

f();

The function execution “pauses” at the line (*) and resumes when the promise settles, with result becoming its result. So the code above shows “done!” in one second.

Let’s emphasize: await literally makes JavaScript wait until the promise settles, and then go on with the result. That doesn’t cost any CPU resources, because the engine can do other jobs meanwhile: execute other scripts, handle events etc.

It’s just a more elegant syntax of getting the promise result than promise.then, easier to read and write.

Can’t use await in regular functions

If we try to use await in non-async function, there would be a syntax error:

function f() {
  let promise = Promise.resolve(1);
  let result = await promise; // Syntax error
}

We will get this error if we do not put async before a function. As said, await only works inside an async function.

Let’s take the showAvatar() example from the chapter Promise Zinciri and rewrite it using async/await:

  1. We’ll need to replace .then calls with await.
  2. Also we should make the function async for them to work.
async function showAvatar() {

  // read our JSON
  let response = await fetch('/article/promise-chaining/user.json');
  let user = await response.json();

  // read github user
  let githubResponse = await fetch(`https://api.github.com/users/${user.name}`);
  let githubUser = await githubResponse.json();

  // show the avatar
  let img = document.createElement('img');
  img.src = githubUser.avatar_url;
  img.className = "promise-avatar-example";
  document.body.append(img);

  // wait 3 seconds
  await new Promise((resolve, reject) => setTimeout(resolve, 3000));

  img.remove();

  return githubUser;
}

showAvatar();

Pretty clean and easy to read, right? Much better than before.

await won’t work in the top-level code

People who are just starting to use await tend to forget the fact that we can’t use await in top-level code. For example, this will not work:

// syntax error in top-level code
let response = await fetch('/article/promise-chaining/user.json');
let user = await response.json();

We can wrap it into an anonymous async function, like this:

(async () => {
  let response = await fetch('/article/promise-chaining/user.json');
  let user = await response.json();
  ...
})();
await accepts “thenables”

Like promise.then, await allows to use thenable objects (those with a callable then method). The idea is that a 3rd-party object may not be a promise, but promise-compatible: if it supports .then, that’s enough to use with await.

Here’s a demo Thenable class, the await below accepts its instances:

class Thenable {
  constructor(num) {
    this.num = num;
  }
  then(resolve, reject) {
    alert(resolve);
    // resolve with this.num*2 after 1000ms
    setTimeout(() => resolve(this.num * 2), 1000); // (*)
  }
};

async function f() {
  // waits for 1 second, then result becomes 2
  let result = await new Thenable(1);
  alert(result);
}

f();

If await gets a non-promise object with .then, it calls that method providing native functions resolve, reject as arguments. Then await waits until one of them is called (in the example above it happens in the line (*)) and then proceeds with the result.

Async methods

To declare an async class method, just prepend it with async:

class Waiter {
  async wait() {
    return await Promise.resolve(1);
  }
}

new Waiter()
  .wait()
  .then(alert); // 1

The meaning is the same: it ensures that the returned value is a promise and enables await.

Error handling

If a promise resolves normally, then await promise returns the result. But in case of a rejection, it throws the error, just as if there were a throw statement at that line.

This code:

async function f() {
  await Promise.reject(new Error("Whoops!"));
}

…Is the same as this:

async function f() {
  throw new Error("Whoops!");
}

In real situations, the promise may take some time before it rejects. So await will wait, and then throw an error.

We can catch that error using try..catch, the same way as a regular throw:

async function f() {

  try {
    let response = await fetch('http://no-such-url');
  } catch(err) {
    alert(err); // TypeError: failed to fetch
  }
}

f();

In case of an error, the control jumps to the catch block. We can also wrap multiple lines:

async function f() {

  try {
    let response = await fetch('/no-user-here');
    let user = await response.json();
  } catch(err) {
    // catches errors both in fetch and response.json
    alert(err);
  }
}

f();

If we don’t have try..catch, then the promise generated by the call of the async function f() becomes rejected. We can append .catch to handle it:

async function f() {
  let response = await fetch('http://no-such-url');
}

// f() becomes a rejected promise
f().catch(alert); // TypeError: failed to fetch // (*)

If we forget to add .catch there, then we get an unhandled promise error (viewable in the console). We can catch such errors using a global event handler as described in the chapter Error handling with promises.

async/await and promise.then/catch

When we use async/await, we rarely need .then, because await handles the waiting for us. And we can use a regular try..catch instead of .catch. That’s usually (not always) more convenient.

But at the top level of the code, when we’re outside of any async function, we’re syntactically unable to use await, so it’s a normal practice to add .then/catch to handle the final result or falling-through errors.

Like in the line (*) of the example above.

async/await works well with Promise.all

When we need to wait for multiple promises, we can wrap them in Promise.all and then await:

// wait for the array of results
let results = await Promise.all([
  fetch(url1),
  fetch(url2),
  ...
]);

In case of an error, it propagates as usual: from the failed promise to Promise.all, and then becomes an exception that we can catch using try..catch around the call.

Microtask queue

As we’ve seen in the chapter Microtasks and event loop, promise handlers are executed asynchronously. Every .then/catch/finally handler first gets into the “microtask queue” and executed after the current code is complete.

Async/await is based on promises, so it uses the same microtask queue internally, and has the similar priority over macrotasks.

For instance, we have:

  • setTimeout(handler, 0), that should run handler with zero delay.
  • let x = await f(), function f() is async, but returns immediately.

Which one runs first if await is below setTimeout in the code?

async function f() {
  return 1;
}

(async () => {
    setTimeout(() => alert('timeout'), 0);

    await f();

    alert('await');
})();

There’s no ambiguity here: await always finishes first, because (as a microtask) it has a higher priority than setTimeout handling.

Summary

The async keyword before a function has two effects:

  1. Makes it always return a promise.
  2. Allows to use await in it.

The await keyword before a promise makes JavaScript wait until that promise settles, and then:

  1. If it’s an error, the exception is generated, same as if throw error were called at that very place.
  2. Otherwise, it returns the result, so we can assign it to a value.

Together they provide a great framework to write asynchronous code that is easy both to read and write.

With async/await we rarely need to write promise.then/catch, but we still shouldn’t forget that they are based on promises, because sometimes (e.g. in the outermost scope) we have to use these methods. Also Promise.all is a nice thing to wait for many tasks simultaneously.

Görevler

Rewrite the one of examples from the chapter Promise Zinciri using async/await instead of .then/catch:

function loadJson(url) {
  return fetch(url)
    .then(response => {
      if (response.status == 200) {
        return response.json();
      } else {
        throw new Error(response.status);
      }
    })
}

loadJson('no-such-user.json') // (3)
  .catch(alert); // Error: 404

The notes are below the code:

async function loadJson(url) { // (1)
  let response = await fetch(url); // (2)

  if (response.status == 200) {
    let json = await response.json(); // (3)
    return json;
  }

  throw new Error(response.status);
}

loadJson('no-such-user.json')
  .catch(alert); // Error: 404 (4)

Notes:

  1. The function loadJson becomes async.

  2. All .then inside are replaced with await.

  3. We can return response.json() instead of awaiting for it, like this:

    if (response.status == 200) {
      return response.json(); // (3)
    }

    Then the outer code would have to await for that promise to resolve. In our case it doesn’t matter.

  4. The error thrown from loadJson is handled by .catch. We can’t use await loadJson(…) there, because we’re not in an async function.

Below you can find the “rethrow” example from the chapter Promise Zinciri. Rewrite it using async/await instead of .then/catch.

And get rid of the recursion in favour of a loop in demoGithubUser: with async/await that becomes easy to do.

class HttpError extends Error {
  constructor(response) {
    super(`${response.status} for ${response.url}`);
    this.name = 'HttpError';
    this.response = response;
  }
}

function loadJson(url) {
  return fetch(url)
    .then(response => {
      if (response.status == 200) {
        return response.json();
      } else {
        throw new HttpError(response);
      }
    })
}

// Ask for a user name until github returns a valid user
function demoGithubUser() {
  let name = prompt("Enter a name?", "iliakan");

  return loadJson(`https://api.github.com/users/${name}`)
    .then(user => {
      alert(`Full name: ${user.name}.`);
      return user;
    })
    .catch(err => {
      if (err instanceof HttpError && err.response.status == 404) {
        alert("No such user, please reenter.");
        return demoGithubUser();
      } else {
        throw err;
      }
    });
}

demoGithubUser();

There are no tricks here. Just replace .catch with try...catch inside demoGithubUser and add async/await where needed:

class HttpError extends Error {
  constructor(response) {
    super(`${response.status} for ${response.url}`);
    this.name = 'HttpError';
    this.response = response;
  }
}

async function loadJson(url) {
  let response = await fetch(url);
  if (response.status == 200) {
    return response.json();
  } else {
    throw new HttpError(response);
  }
}

// Ask for a user name until github returns a valid user
async function demoGithubUser() {

  let user;
  while(true) {
    let name = prompt("Enter a name?", "iliakan");

    try {
      user = await loadJson(`https://api.github.com/users/${name}`);
      break; // no error, exit loop
    } catch(err) {
      if (err instanceof HttpError && err.response.status == 404) {
        // loop continues after the alert
        alert("No such user, please reenter.");
      } else {
        // unknown error, rethrow
        throw err;
      }
    }
  }


  alert(`Full name: ${user.name}.`);
  return user;
}

demoGithubUser();

We have a “regular” function. How to call async from it and use its result?

async function wait() {
  await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, 1000));

  return 10;
}

function f() {
  // ...what to write here?
  // we need to call async wait() and wait to get 10
  // remember, we can't use "await"
}

P.S. The task is technically very simple, but the question is quite common for developers new to async/await.

That’s the case when knowing how it works inside is helpful.

Just treat async call as promise and attach .then to it:

async function wait() {
  await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, 1000));

  return 10;
}

function f() {
  // shows 10 after 1 second
  wait().then(result => alert(result));
}

f();
Eğitim haritası