Develop Reference

How can I turn my javascript callback flow into a Promise?

function getMentionedUsers(str, next){
var array = getUsernamesFromString(str); //['john','alex','jess'];
if(array.length > 0){
var users = [];
var pending = array.length;
array.forEach(function(username){
getUserByUsername(username).then(function(model){
users.push(model.key);
--pending || next(users); //this is a callback model
});
});
}
};
function getUserByUsername(username){
return admin.database().ref('/users').orderByChild('username').equalTo(username).once('value').then(function(snapshot) {
return snapshot.val(); //this is the firebase example of a promise
});
};
Right now, I'm doing this:
getMentionedUsers(model.body, function(users){
console.log("Mentions", users);
});
However, I'd like to turn getMentionedUsers into a promise. How can I do that? I'm new to Promises

You could use Promise.all and Array#map:
function getMentionedUsers(str) {
return Promise.all(getUsernamesFromString(str).map((username) => {
return getUserByUsername(username).then((model) => model.key);
}));
}
A more readable version broken into two functions:
function getUserKeyByUsername(username) {
return getUserByUsername(username).then((user) => user.key);
}
function getMentionedUsers(str) {
const promises = getUsernamesFromString(str).map(getUserKeyByUsername);
return Promise.all(promises);
}

Use Promise.all.
const getMentionedUsers = str =>
Promise.all(
getUsernamesFromString(str).map(
username => getUserByUsername(username)
.then(model => model.key)
)
);
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Promise/all

You can have the best of both. If you pass a next function, it will get called with the results. If not, your method will return a promise.
function getMentionedUsers(str, next){
var array = getUsernamesFromString(str); //['john','alex','jess'];
var promise = Promise.resolve([]); // default
var hasNext = typeof next === 'function';
if(array.length > 0){
promise = Promise.all(array.map(function(username){
return getUserByUsername(username);
}));
}
promise = promise.then(models => {
var users = models.map(model => model.key);
if (hasNext) next(null, users);
return users;
});
if (hasNext) promise.catch(next);
else return promise;
};
UPDATE: Though not part of your original question, this is still a good point and worth pointing out. Your existing code is using a non-standard callback technique. The standard callback technique expects an error as the first parameter and results as a second parameter:
next(new Error(...)); //-> when something fails
next(null, results); //-> when something succeeds
As such, I have updated my code to show the "standard" callback behavior alongside promises. Using the hybrid approach above allows for existing code to stay in place while allowing new code to use the new Promise technique. This would be considered a "non-breaking change".

using native ES6 promises, written in a functional style:
// Returns array of usernames
function getUsernamesFromString(str = '') {
return str.split(',').map(s => s.trim())
}
// returns promise of user
function getUserByUserName(username) {
// Lets say this is a slow async function and returns a promise
return Promise.resolve({
id: (Math.random() * 10 ** 10).toFixed(0),
username
});
}
function getMentionedUsers(str) {
return Promise.all(
getUsernamesFromString(str).map(getUserByUserName)
);
}
getMentionedUsers('kai, ava, mia, nova').then(console.log.bind(console))
However, there are also libraries like bluebird that can promisify objects and functions automatically as long as the follow the NODE convention of (err, result) as the callback arguments.
You can also just return a new Promise((resolve, reject) => { /* all your code */ }) and just call resolve(dataToResolveWith) if it succeeds and reject(new Error()) if it fails, but you rarely have to do that and in fact, it's an anti-pattern.

Understanding JavaScript promises in Parse

I am developing an app in Parse and I'm trying to understand promises. I'm not finding very many working examples other than the very simple ones here: https://parse.com/docs/js/guide.
I'm querying the _User table. Then I loop through the users in an _.each loop. I'm running 2 cloud functions inside the loop for each iteration. At what point do I create the promise? Do I create one for each cloud function success within the loop? Or do I push each success return value onto an array and make that the promise value outside of the loop? I've tried both but I can't figure out the correct syntax to do either, it seems.
I'll break it down in pseudo-code because that may be easier than actual code:
var query = new Parse.Query(Parse.User);
query.find().then(function(users){
loop through each user in an _.each loop and run a cloud function for each that returns a number.
If the number > 0, then I push their username onto array1.
Then I run a 2nd cloud function on the user (still within the _.each loop) that returns a number.
If the number > 0, then I push their username onto array2.
}).then(function(promisesArray){
// I would like "promisesArray" to either be the 2 arrays created in the preceding section, or a concatenation of them.
// Ultimately, I need a list of usernames here. Specifically, the users who had positive number values from the cloud functions in the preceding section
concatenate the 2 arrays, if they're not already concatenated
remove duplicates
send push notifications to the users in the array
});
Questions:
- At what point do I create & return promises & what syntax should I use for that?
- Should .then(function(promisesArray){ be .when(function(promisesArray){ (when instead of then)?

Thank you both for your ideas! This is what ultimately worked:
var query = new Parse.Query(Parse.User);
query.find().then(function(users){
var allPromises = [];
var promise1, promise2;
_.each(users, function(user){
if(user.get("myvalue") != "undefined" && user.get("myvalue") != ""){
promise1 = Parse.Cloud.run("getBatch1", {param1: param1value, param2: param2value})
.then(function(numResult){
if(Number(numResult) > 0){
return Parse.Promise.as(user.getUsername());
}
});
}
allPromises.push(promise1);
if(user.get("anothervalue")==true){
promise2 = Parse.Cloud.run("getBatch2", {param1: param1value, param2: param2value})
.then(function(numResult2){
if(Number(numResult2) > 0){
return Parse.Promise.as(user.getUsername());
}
});
}
allPromises.push(promise2);
});
// Return when all promises have succeeded.
return Parse.Promise.when(allPromises);
}).then(function(){
var allPushes = [];
_.each(arguments, function(pushUser){
// Only add the user to the push array if it's a valid user & not already there.
if(pushUser != null && allPushes.indexOf(pushUser) === -1){
allPushes.push(pushUser);
}
});
// Send pushes to users who got new leads.
if(allPushes.length > 0){
Parse.Push.send({
channels: allPushes,
data: {
alert: "You have new leads."
}
}, {
success: function () {
response.success("Leads updated and push notifications sent.");
},
error: function (error) {
console.log(error);
console.error(error);
response.error(error.message);
}
});
}
response.success(JSON.stringify(allPushes));
}, // If the query was not successful, log the error
function(error){
console.log(error);
console.error(error);
response.error(error.message);
});

I'm not familiar with Parse API but I'd do it this way. Of course, I can't test my code so tell me if it works or not:
var query = new Parse.Query(Parse.User);
query.find()
.then(function(users) {
var promises = [];
users.forEach(function(user) {
// the first API call return a promise so let's store it
var promise = cloudFn1(user)
.then(function(result) {
if (result > 0) {
// just a way to say 'ok, the promise is resolved, here's the user name'
return Parse.Promise.as(user.name);
} else {
// return another promise for that second API call
return cloudFn2(user).then(function(res) {
if (result > 0) {
return Parse.Promise.as(user.name);
}
});
}
});
// store this promise for this user
promises.push(promise);
});
// return a promise that will be resolved when all promises for all users are resolved
return Parse.Promise.when(promises);
}).then(function(myUsers) {
// remove duplicates is easy with _
myUsers = _.uniq(myUsers);
// do your push
myUsers.forEach( function(user) {
});
});

First, you need to understand what Promises are. From what I understand of what you're trying to do it should look something like this:
//constructs the Parse Object
var query = new Parse.Query(Parse.User);
//find method returns a Promise
var res = query.find()
//good names will be a Promise of an array of usernames
//whose value is above 0
var goodNames = res
.then(function(data) {
//assumes the find method returns an array of
//objects, one of the properties is username
//we will map over it to create an Array of promises
//with the eventual results of calling the AJAX fn
var numberPromises = data.map(function(obj) {
//wrap the call to the cloud function in a new
//promise
return new Promise(resolve, reject) {
someCloudFn(obj.username, function(err) {
if (err) {
reject(err);
} else {
resolve(num);
}
});
}
};
//Promise.all will take the array of promises of numbers
//and return a promise of an array of results
return [data, Promise.all(numberPromises)];
})
.then(function(arr) {
//we only get here when all of the Promises from the
//cloud function resolve
var data = arr[0];
var numbers = arr[1];
return data
.filter(function(obj, i) {
//filter out the objects whose username number
//is zero or less
return numbers[i] > 0;
})
.map(function(obj) {
//get the username out of the query result obj
return obj.username;
});
})
.catch(function(err) {
console.log(JSON.stringify(err));
});
Now whenever you need to use the list of usernames whose number isn't zero you can call the then method of goodNames and get the result:
goodNames.then(function(listOfNames) {
//do something with the names
});

How to reuse promises?

I am trying to reuse the the data returned from promise here. But, the problem is, after the first call to checkPromise function, it immediately calls the second function, and the promise for the first function is not fulfilled, so it never returns any data, and hence it never enters the if clause. How do I reuse a promise?
var Promise = require('bluebird');
var request = Promise.promisify(require("request"));
var url = 'http://www.google.com';
var obj = new Object;
function apiCall(url) {
return new Promise(function (resolve, reject) {
request(url).spread(function(response, body) {
return resolve(body);
}).catch(function(err) {
console.error(err);
return reject(err);
});
});
}
function checkPromise(url) {
if(obj.hasOwnProperty(url)) {
var rp = obj[url];
//do something
}
else {
apiCall(url).then(function(result) {
obj[url] = result;
//do something
});
}
}
checkPromise(url);
checkPromise(url);

You likely have a timing issue. Your apiCall() function is asynchronous. That means it finishes sometime later. As such, each time you call checkPromise(), all you're doing is starting a request and it finishes sometime later. So, you call it the first time and it starts a request (that has not finished yet). Then, your next call to checkPromise() gets called and it does it's if check before the first call has completed. Thus, it finds nothing in the cache yet.
Your code is running two requests in parallel, not one after the other.
If you actually want to wait until the first request is done before executing the second one, then you will have to actually structure your code to do that. You would need to make checkPromise() return a promise itself so code using it could known when it was actually done in order to execute something after it was done.
FYI, I don't see anything in your code that is actually related to reusing promises (which is something you cannot do because they are one-shot objects).
Here's one possible implementation:
var Promise = require('bluebird');
var request = Promise.promisify(require("request"));
var url = 'http://www.google.com';
var obj = {};
function apiCall(url) {
return request(url).spread(function(response, body) {
return body;
});
}
function checkPromise(url) {
if(obj.hasOwnProperty(url)) {
var rp = obj[url];
//do something
return Promise.resolve(rp);
}
else {
return apiCall(url).then(function(result) {
obj[url] = result;
//do something
return result;
});
}
}
checkPromise(url).then(function() {
checkPromise(url);
});
Significant changes:
Return the promise returned by request() rather than create yet another one.
Change checkPromise() so it always returns a promise whether the value is found in the cache or not so calling code can always work consistently.
Sequence the two checkPromise() calls so the first can finish before the second is executed.
A very different approach would be to actually wait on the cache if a result you are interested in is already being loaded. That could be done like this:
var Promise = require('bluebird');
var request = Promise.promisify(require("request"));
var url = 'http://www.google.com';
var obj = {};
function apiCall(url) {
return request(url).spread(function(response, body) {
return body;
});
}
function checkPromise(url) {
if(obj.hasOwnProperty(url)) {
// If it's a promise object in the cache, then loading
// If it's a value, then the value is already available
// Either way, we wrap it in a promise and return that
return Promise.resolve(obj[url]);
} else {
var p = apiCall(url).then(function(result) {
obj[url] = result;
//do something
return result;
});
obj[url] = p;
return p;
}
}
checkPromise(url).then(function(result) {
// use result
});
checkPromise(url).then(function(result) {
// use result
});

few problems with your code, first in apiCall, you are doing a promise ant-pattern( no need for that new promise), second your checkPromise is doing a sync operation, so it must either return a promise or have a callback argument, so you code can be changed into:
var Promise = require('bluebird');
var request = Promise.promisify(require("request"));
var url = 'http://www.google.com';
var obj = new Object;
function apiCall(url) {
return request(url).spread(function(response, body) {
return body;
}).catch(function(err) {
console.error(err);
throw err;
});
}
function checkPromise(url) {
var promise = Promise.resolve();
if(obj.hasOwnProperty(url)) {
var rp = obj[url];
//do something
}
else {
return apiCall(url).then(function(result) {
obj[url] = result;
//do something
});
}
return promise;
}
checkPromise(url).then(function(){
return checkPromise(url);
});

Given the way you are globally storing the result in 'obj[url]', it'd probably be easiest to do
function checkPromise(url) {
if (!obj[url]) obj[url] = apiCall(url);
obj[url].then(function(result) {
//do something
});
}
to basically make the request, if it hasn't already started, then attach a listener to the promise for when the result has loaded.

Here is the simplest example of how to prevent multiple API calls if there are multiple similar request for something (cache check for example)
var _cache = {
state: 0,
result: undefined,
getData: function(){
log('state: ' + this.state);
if(this.state === 0 ){ // not started
this.state = 1; // pending
this.promise = new Promise(function(resolve, reject) {
return (apiCall().then(data => { _cache.result = data; _cache.state = 2; resolve(_cache.result) }));
})
return this.promise;
}
else if(this.state === 1){ // pending
return this.promise;
}
else if(this.state === 2){// resolved
return Promise.resolve(this.result);
}
},
};
Simulating api call
function apiCall(){
return new Promise(function(resolve, reject) {
log('in promise')
setTimeout(() => {
log('promise resolving')
resolve(1);
}, 1000);
})
}
Making simultaneous requests.
_cache.getData().then(result => { log('first call outer: ' + result);
_cache.getData().then(result => { log('first call inner: ' + result); });
});
_cache.getData().then(result => { log('second call outer: ' + result);
_cache.getData().then(result => { log('second call inner: ' + result); });
});
Only one API call is maden. All others will wait for completion or use the resolved result if it already completed.

Chek the return from a promise function before proceeding. Wrong approach?

Background: I have a PHP background and this is my first application using MEAN stack.
I need to save a record but before I must to check if there is any record under the same id already saved in the DB.
In PHP I would do something like this:
Once the user clicks "Save":
1) Call the function to check if an entry with that id already exists
2) If it doesnt, call the save function.
In Javascript, I'm getting a little confused with Promises and so on.
Can somebody give me some light here?
Right now, I'm doing the following:
In the save api, I call this function to check if the record already exists in the DB:
recordExists = findTranscationByBill(billId);
function findTransactionByBill(billId){
results = new promise(function(resolve, reject){
Transactions.find({billId : billId},function(err, transactions){
if(err)
reject("Error: "+err);
//console.log(transactions);
resolve(transactions);
});
});
results.then(function(data){
console.log('Promise fullfilled: '+ data);
}, function(error){
console.log('Promise rejected: ' + error);
});
return $results;
}
The problem is that I think I'm not using promise properly, as my variable doesn't get populated (because its Async).
In the console.log I see that the promise is being fulfilled however, the variable returns as [object Object]
I'm stucked with this problem because I don't know if I should carry on thinking as PHP mindset or if there is a different approach used in Javascript.
Thanks in advance!

In my opinion you could just as well use a callback for this, and since MongoDB has a count method, why not use it
function findTransactionByBill(billId, callback){
Transactions.count({billId : billId}, function(err, count){
if (err) {
callback(err, false);
} else {
callback(null, count !== 0);
}
});
}
and to use it
findTransactionByBill(billId, function(err, exists) {
if (err) {
// handle errors
} else if ( ! exists ) {
// insert into DB
}
}

I think the right function is:
function findTransactionByBill(billId){
var results = new promise(function(resolve, reject){
Transactions.find({billId : billId},function(err, transactions){
if(err) {
reject(err);
} else {
if (transactions.length === 0) {
reject('No any transaction');
} else {
//console.log(transactions);
resolve(transactions);
}
});
});
results.then(function(data){
console.log('Promise fullfilled: '+ data);
}, function(error){
console.log('Promise rejected: ' + error);
});
return results;
}
And then use it like this:
recordExists = findTranscationByBill(billId);
recordExists.then(function() {
// resolved, there are some transactions
}, function() {
// rejected. Error or no any transactions found
// may be you need to check reject result to act differently then no transactions and then error
});

I assume you are using mongodb native drive.
I think mongodb doesn't have promise built-in supported. So you have to promisify it by a little help from promise library. Please refer this if you want to use bluebird.
After promisifying, the code should looks like that (using bluebird):
Promise = require('bluebird');
// Promisify...
var _db = null;
var client = MongoClient.connectAsync('mongodb://localhost:27017/test')
.then(function(db) {
_db = db
return db.collection("myCollection").findOneAsync({ id: 'billId' })
})
.then(function(item) {
if (item)
_db.save(item);
})
.catch (err) {
// error handling
}
The above code is not perfect, because it introduced a global var, so the better version may be
Promise = require('bluebird');
// Promisify...
var client = MongoClient.connectAsync('mongodb://localhost:27017/test')
.then(function(db) {
return Promise.prop({
item: db.collection("myCollection").findOneAsync({ id: 'billId' },
db: db
})
})
.then(function(result) {
var item = result.item;
var db = result.db
if (item)
db.save(item);
})
.catch (err) {
// error handling
}
You need to check bluebird to know how to use it. Also they are many other promise libraries like q, when, but all are similar stuff.

Multiple Q.all inside function?

I want to send a list of new books to a user. So far the below code works fine. The problem is that I don't want to send a book multiple times, so I want to filter them.
Current code works fine:
function checkActiveBooks(books) {
var queue = _(books).map(function(book) {
var deferred = Q.defer();
// Get all alerts on given keywords
request('http://localhost:5000/books?l=0&q=' + book.name, function(error, response, body) {
if (error) {
deferred.reject(error);
}
var books = JSON.parse(body);
if (!_.isEmpty(books)) {
// Loop through users of current book.
var userBooks = _(book.users).map(function(user) {
// Save object for this user with name and deals.
return {
user: user,
book: book.name,
books: books
}
});
if (_.isEmpty(userBooks)) {
deferred.resolve(null);
} else {
deferred.resolve(userBooks);
}
} else {
deferred.resolve(null);
}
});
return deferred.promise;
});
return Q.all(queue);
}
But now I want to filter already sent books:
function checkActiveBooks(books) {
var queue = _(books).map(function(book) {
var deferred = Q.defer();
// Get all alerts on given keywords
request('http://localhost:5000/books?l=0&q=' + book.name, function(error, response, body) {
if (error) {
deferred.reject(error);
}
var books = JSON.parse(body);
if (!_.isEmpty(books)) {
// Loop through users of current book.
var userBooks = _(book.users).map(function(user) {
var defer = Q.defer();
var userBook = user.userBook.dataValues;
// Check per given UserBook which books are already sent to the user by mail
checkSentBooks(userBook).then(function(sentBooks) {
// Filter books which are already sent.
var leftBooks = _.reject(books, function(obj) {
return sentBooks.indexOf(obj.id) > -1;
});
// Save object for this user with name and deals.
var result = {
user: user,
book: book.name,
books: leftBooks
}
return deferred.resolve(result);
});
return Q.all(userBooks);
} else {
deferred.resolve(null);
}
});
return deferred.promise;
});
return Q.all(queue);
}
But above code doesn't work. It doesn't stop looping. I thought it made sense to use q.all twice, because it contains two loops. But I guess I'm doing it wrong...

First of all you should always promisify at the lowest level. You're complicating things here and have multiple deferreds. Generally you should only have deferreds when converting an API to promises. Promises chain and compose so let's do that :)
var request = Q.nfbind(require("request")); // a promised version.
This can make your code in the top section become:
function checkActiveBooks(books) {
return Q.all(books.map(function(book){
return request('http://.../books?l=0&q=' + book.name)
.get(1) // body
.then(JSON.parse) // parse body as json
.then(function(book){
if(_.isEmpty(book.users)) return null;
return book.users.map(function(user){
return {user: user, book: book.name, books: books };
});
});
});
}
Which is a lot more elegant in my opinion.
Now, if we want to filter them by a predicate we can do:
function checkActiveBooksThatWereNotSent(books) {
return checkActiveBooks(books).then(function(books){
return books.filter(function(book){
return checkSentBooks(book.book);
});
});
}
It's worth mentioning that the Bluebird library has utility methods for all this like Promise#filter and Promise#map that'd make this code shorter.
Note that if checkSentBook is asynchronous you'd need to modify the code slightly:
function checkActiveBooksThatWereNotSent(books) {
return checkActiveBooks(books).then(function(books){
return Q.all(books.map(function(book){ // note the Q.all
return Q.all([book, checkSentBooks(book.book)]);
})).then(function(results){
return results.filter(function(x){ return x[1]; })
.map(function(x){ return x[0]; });
});
});
}
Like I said, with different libraries this would look a lot nicer. Here is how the code would look like in Bluebird which is also two orders of magnitude faster and has good stack traces and detection of unhandled rejections. For fun and glory I threw in ES6 arrows and shorthand properties:
var request = Promise.promisify(require("request"));
var checkActiveBooks = (books) =>
Promise.
map(books, book => request("...&q=" + book.name).get(1)).
map(JSON.parse).
map(book => book.users.length ?
book.users.map(user => {user, books, book: book.name) : null))
var checkActiveBooksThatWereNotSent = (books) =>
checkActiveBooks(books).filter(checkBookSent)
Which I find a lot nicer.

Acting on #Benjamins's suggestion, here is what the code would look like when checkSentBooks returns a promise:
var request = Q.nfbind(require("request")); // a promised version.
function checkActiveBooks(books) {
return Q.all(_(books).map(function(book) {
// a callback with multiple arguments will resolve the promise with
// an array, so we use `spread` here
return request('http://localhost:5000/books?l=0&q=' + book.name).spread(function(response, body) {
var books = JSON.parse(body);
if (_.isEmpty(books)) return null;
return Q.all(_(book.users).map(function(user) {
return checkSentBooks(user.userBook.dataValues).then(function(sentBooks) {
// ^^^^^^ return a promise to the array for `Q.all`
return {
user: user,
book: book.name,
books: _.reject(books, function(obj) {
return sentBooks.indexOf(obj.id) > -1;
})
};
});
}));
});
}));
}