Question about promises

[bluejellybean]

Is there a way to not have to type 'return new Promise(( resolve, reject ) => {' every single function?

I almost want to get rid of all callbacks from javascript hah!

[towerofnix]

Nope - promises always need a callback function as the argument.

If you find you're using repetitive, similar promises, you could make the promise creating code into a function, though.

For example, you could change this:

new Promise((resolve, reject) => { setTimeout(resolve, 1000) })
  .then(function() { /* do something */ })
  .then(function() { return new Promise(function() { setTimeout(resolve, 1000) }) })
  .then(function() { /* do something */ })

Into this:

function delay(ms) {
  return function() {
    return new Promise(function(resolve, reject) {
      setTimeout(resolve, ms)
    })
  }
}

delay(1000)()
  .then(function() { /* do something */ })
  .then(delay(1000))
  .then(function() { /* do something */ })

In the future you'll be able to use async/await to make the code generally simpler:

function delay(ms) {
  return new Promise(function(resolve, reject) {
    setTimeout(resolve, ms)
  })
}

async function main() {
  await delay(1000)
  /* do something */
  await delay(1000)
  /* do something */
}

main()

But async/await isn't part of the standard yet, and isn't implemented into Node.js for now anyways (though you can use things like Babel to compile programs that use features like async/await).

You can read more about async/await here.

[bluejellybean]

Interesting thank you, still the bit of boilerplate but feels much more clean.

[saadq]

There is a pull request pending for adding Promises to node's core.

So if this pull request lands, instead of doing

const { readFile } = require('fs')

readFile('blah.txt', (err, data) => {
  ...
})

You'll be able to do

const { readFile } = require('fs').promise

readFile('blah.txt').then(data => {
  ...
})

They aren't getting rid of the callback API though, so if you want to use promises, you'll have to specify that .promise at the end. Although there's talk about it being changed to maybe use submodules, which would change

const { readFile } = require('fs').promise

into

const { readFile } = require('fs/promise')

Either way, I'm really hoping the pull request gets through.

[towerofnix]

And for now, there's fs-promise, which is basically the same thing but as an ordinary node module you can use right now:

const { readFile } = require('fs-promise')

[Knighton910]

@bluejellybean any progress with this issue?