Replacing callbacks with promises in Node.js

Question

I have a simple node module which connects to a database and has several functions to receive data, for example this function:

---

dbConnection.js:

import mysql from 'mysql';

const connection = mysql.createConnection({
  host: 'localhost',
  user: 'user',
  password: 'password',
  database: 'db'
});

export default {
  getUsers(callback) {
    connection.connect(() => {
      connection.query('SELECT * FROM Users', (err, result) => {
        if (!err){
          callback(result);
        }
      });
    });
  }
};

The module would be called this way from a different node module:

---

app.js:

import dbCon from './dbConnection.js';

dbCon.getUsers(console.log);

I would like to use promises instead of callbacks in order to return the data. So far I've read about nested promises in the following thread: Writing Clean Code With Nested Promises, but I couldn't find any solution that is simple enough for this use case. What would be the correct way to return result using a promise?

Answer 1

Using the Promise class

I recommend to take a look at MDN's Promise docs which offer a good starting point for using Promises. Alternatively, I am sure there are many tutorials available online.:)

Note: Modern browsers already support ECMAScript 6 specification of Promises (see the MDN docs linked above) and I assume that you want to use the native implementation, without 3rd party libraries.

As for an actual example...

The basic principle works like this:

1. Your API is called
2. You create a new Promise object, this object takes a single function as constructor parameter
3. Your provided function is called by the underlying implementation and the function is given two functions - resolve and reject
4. Once you do your logic, you call one of these to either fullfill the Promise or reject it with an error

This might seem like a lot so here is an actual example.

exports.getUsers = function getUsers () {
  // Return the Promise right away, unless you really need to
  // do something before you create a new Promise, but usually
  // this can go into the function below
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    // reject and resolve are functions provided by the Promise
    // implementation. Call only one of them.

    // Do your logic here - you can do WTF you want.:)
    connection.query('SELECT * FROM Users', (err, result) => {
      // PS. Fail fast! Handle errors first, then move to the
      // important stuff (that's a good practice at least)
      if (err) {
        // Reject the Promise with an error
        return reject(err)
      }

      // Resolve (or fulfill) the promise with data
      return resolve(result)
    })
  })
}

// Usage:
exports.getUsers()  // Returns a Promise!
  .then(users => {
    // Do stuff with users
  })
  .catch(err => {
    // handle errors
  })

Using the async/await language feature (Node.js >=7.6)

In Node.js 7.6, the v8 JavaScript compiler was upgraded with async/await support. You can now declare functions as being async, which means they automatically return a Promise which is resolved when the async function completes execution. Inside this function, you can use the await keyword to wait until another Promise resolves.

Here is an example:

exports.getUsers = async function getUsers() {
  // We are in an async function - this will return Promise
  // no matter what.

  // We can interact with other functions which return a
  // Promise very easily:
  const result = await connection.query('select * from users')

  // Interacting with callback-based APIs is a bit more
  // complicated but still very easy:
  const result2 = await new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    connection.query('select * from users', (err, res) => {
      return void err ? reject(err) : resolve(res)
    })
  })
  // Returning a value will cause the promise to be resolved
  // with that value
  return result
}