no-async-hook

You Might Not Need A useEffectAsync Hook

This library brings the Async and Effect functions to your codebase which allow you to seamlessly switch between the async/await and callback/effect style functions. Using these functions also lets eslint statically verify the correct usage of the dependencies inside a useEffect hook.

In depth article on why You Might Not Need A useEffectAsync Hook.

How To Install

Using NPM:

npm install no-async-hook

Using Yarn:

yarn add no-async-hook

Async

The Async function allows you to write a normal async function and converts that async function into a function that useEffect can control. Simply add () => Async(async signal => { /* your code */ }) to your useEffect and use async/await functions.

import { Async } from "no-async-hook";
import { useEffect, useState } from "react";

const PersonComponent: React.FC = ({ personId }) => {
    const [name, setName] = useState<string | undefined>(undefined);

    useEffect(() => Async(async signal => {
        await delay(1000, signal);
        const person = await findPersonById(personId, signal);
        const fullName = person.firstName + ' ' + person.lastName;
        setName(fullName);
    }), [personId]);

    return name === undefined ? (
        <p>Loading person...</p>
    ) : (
        <p>The person is named: { name }</p>
    );
}

useEffect Dependencies

Since Async is just another function called inside useEffect, eslint verifies missing dependencies like it would for any other function inside useEffect. For example, if the personId were to be forgotten inside the useEffect dependency array, eslint would warn you with the message: React Hook useEffect has a missing dependency: 'personId'. Either include it or remove the dependency array react-hooks/exhaustive-deps.

import { Async } from "no-async-hook";
import { useEffect, useState } from "react";

const PersonComponent: React.FC = ({ personId }) => {
    const [name, setName] = useState<string | undefined>(undefined);

    useEffect(() => Async(async signal => {
        await delay(1000, signal);
        const person = await findPersonById(personId, signal);
        const fullName = person.firstName + ' ' + person.lastName;
        setName(fullName);
    }), []); // <--- missing `personId`

    return name === undefined ? (
        <p>Loading person...</p>
    ) : (
        <p>The person is named: { name }</p>
    );
}

Effect

The inverse function of Async is Effect and is used to convert a callback style function into a promise. Inside Effect you can write code just like inside a useEffect lambda.

useEffect(() => Async(async signal => {
    await Effect<void>(resolve => {
        const timeoutId = setTimeout(() => resolve(), 1000);
        return () => clearTimeout(timeoutId);
    }, signal);
    const response = await endpoint.findById(..., signal);
}), [...]);

The main difference between useEffect and Effect is that instead of passing a dependency array to Effect it accepts an AbortSignal and provides a resolve function to fulfill the promise. With Effect any callback style function can be converted into a promise easily. Furthermore, these promises can be wrapped inside async functions to simplify async useEffect even more.

const delay = (milliseconds: number, signal: AbortSignal): Promise<void> => {
    return Effect<void>(resolve => {
        const timeoutId = setTimeout(() => resolve(), milliseconds);
        return () => clearTimeout(timeoutId);
    }, signal);
}

useEffect(() => Async(async signal => {
    await delay(1000, signal);
    const response = await endpoint.findById(..., signal);
}), [...]);

Exception Handling

An important aspect of asynchronous programming is the capability to cancel async functions at any given moment. Without it, an async function is forced to run to completion and cannot be stopped. Async function achieve this by throwing the signal.reason from inside the promise.

For this reason cancellation errors thrown inside async function should not be caught in general. Instead, they should be rethrown until they reach the orignal caller of the async function.

However, checking for a specific error is difficult if you neither have controll over the error thrown by the callee nor the error provided by the caller. To work around that limitation the signal can be checked to see if it has already been aborted. Through this you can infer that the error is almost centrainly a cancellation error without having to check for a specific value.

const myAsyncFunction = async (signal: AbortSignal): Promise<any> => {
    try {
        return await anotherAsyncFunction(signal);
    }
    catch (error) {
        if (signal.aborted) { // DO NOT catch cancellations!
            throw error; // The call stack continues to collapse
        }
        else {
            // handle error in some way
            console.error(error);
        }
    }
}