Parallel operations with Promise.all?

Steve picture Steve · Mar 13, 2017 · Viewed 20.2k times · Source

I'm led to believe that Promise.all executes all the functions you pass it in parallel and doesn't care what order the returned promises finish.

But when I write this test code:

function Promise1(){
    return new Promise(function(resolve, reject){
        for(let i = 0; i < 10; i++){
            console.log("Done Err!");
        }
        resolve(true)
    })
}

function Promise2(){
    return new Promise(function(resolve, reject){
        for(let i = 0; i < 10; i++){
            console.log("Done True!");
        }
        resolve(true)
    })
}

Promise.all([ 
    Promise1(),
    Promise2()
])
.then(function(){
    console.log("All Done!")
})

The result I get is this

Done Err!
Done Err!
Done Err!
Done Err!
Done Err!
Done Err!
Done Err!
Done Err!
Done Err!
Done Err!
Done True!
Done True!
Done True!
Done True!
Done True!
Done True!
Done True!
Done True!
Done True!
Done True!
Done!

But if they're running in parallel wouldn't I expect them to be executing at the same time and give me a result like this?

Done Err!
Done True!
Done Err!
Done True!
Done Err!
Done True!
Done Err!
Done True!
Etc. Etc.?

Or am I missing something in the way I'm doing it?

Answer

Johannes Merz picture Johannes Merz · Mar 13, 2017

It's because your Promises are blocking and synchronous! Try something with a timeout instead of a synchronous loop:

function randomResolve(name) {
  return new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(() => {
    console.log(name);
    resolve();
  }, 100 * Math.random()));
}

Promise.all([ 
    randomResolve(1),
    randomResolve(2),
    randomResolve(3),
    randomResolve(4),
])
.then(function(){
    console.log("All Done!")
})