promise-chaining

Yet another wrapper library for Promise chaining.

Why chaining?

There are many Promise implementations. Not only that, you might use Deferred preferably. And there's a possibility that one of libraries you use returns custom-made thenable object.

Now you need to chain them. Of course, chained functions/objects should wait for previous ones to finish execution. Some thenable implementations might not handle thenable objects passed to resolve() function.

This Chain library supports chaining of those 'immature' Promise implementations.

var promise1 = new Promise(function (resolve1) {
  doAsyncTask(function () {
    var promise2 = new Promise(function (resolve2) {
      doAsyncTask(function () {
        resolve2('2nd task has done')
      })
    })
 
    resolve1(promise2)
  })
})
 
promise1.then(function (ret) {
  // This callback should be called after promise2 has resolved
  console.log(ret) // -> should be '2nd task has done'
})

Example

1: Using Chain

var chain = new Chain(promiseGenerator(1))
// -> Task 1: start
 
if (SOME_CONDITION /* true, for example */) {
  chain.then([promiseGenerator, null, 2])
  // Same with: chain.then(promiseGenerator.bind(null, 2))
}
 
chain.then(function () {
  return new Promise(function (resolve) {
    console.log('Task 3: start')
 
    doAsyncTask(function () {
      console.log('Task 3: done')
 
      resolve(promiseGenerator(4))
    })
  })
})
 
if (OTHER_CONDITION /* true, for example */) {
  chain.then([thenableGenerator, null, 5])
  // Same with: chain.then(promiseGenerator.bind(null, 5))
}
 
chain.then(function () {
  console.log('All done')
})
// -> Task 1: done
// -> Task 2: start
// -> Task 2: done
// -> Task 3: start
// -> Task 3: done
// -> Task 4: start
// -> Task 4: done
// -> Task 5: start
// -> Task 5: done
// -> All done

2: Equivalent code using ES2015 Promise

var chain = promiseGenerator(1)
// -> Task 1: start
 
if (SOME_CONDITION /* true, for example */) {
  chain = chain.then(promiseGenerator.bind(null, 2))
}
 
chain = chain.then(function () {
  return new Promise(function (resolve) {
    console.log('Task 3: start')
 
    doAsyncTask(function () {
      console.log('Task 3: done')
 
      resolve(promiseGenerator(4))
    })
  })
})
 
if (OTHER_CONDITION /* true, for example */) {
  chain = chain.then(thenableGenerator.bind(null, 5))
}
 
chain.then(function () {
  console.log('All done')
})
// -> Task 1: done
// -> Task 2: start
// -> Task 2: done
// -> Task 3: start
// -> Task 3: done
// -> Task 4: start
// -> Task 4: done
// -> Task 5: start
// -> Task 5: done
// -> All done

Predefined variables/functions for example codes above

// Example definition
var SOME_CONDITION = true
var OTHER_CONDITION = true
 
function promiseGenerator(n, arg) {
  // Creates and returns promise object
  return new Promise(function (resolve) {
    console.log('Task ' + n + ': start')
 
    // Do an asynchronous task here...
    doAsyncTask(function () {
      console.log('Task ' + n + ': done')
 
      resolve(arg)
    })
  })
}
 
function thenableGenerator(n, arg) {
  // Creates and returns thenable object
  var resolve
 
  console.log('Task ' + n + ': start')
 
  // Do another asynchronous task here...
  doAsyncTask(function () {
    console.log('Task ' + n + ': done')
 
    resolve(arg)
  })
 
  return {
    then: function (callback) {
      resolve = callback
    }
  }
}
 
function doAsyncTask(callback) {
  setTimeout(callback, 100)
}

Installation

$ npm install promise-chaining --save

APIs

Please read test/promise-chaining.spec.js for available APIs and example usages.

Usage

AMD

define(['promise-chaining/src/promise-chaining'], function (Chain) {
  var chain = new Chain()
})

Browser globals

Load script first:

<script src="promise-chaining/src/promise-chaining.js"></script>

yields global class function Chain.

With Chain class:

var chain = new Chain()

Node.js

const Chain = require('promise-chaining')
 
let chain = new Chain()

Issues

Feel free to submit issues and enhancement requests.

Contributing

Please refer to JavaScript Standard Style and follow the guideline for submitting patches and additions.

I slightly modified the rule for this project... no space after function name because Sublime Text fails to parse function names if there's space after function name:

function name(arg) { ... }

See .eslintrc for detail.

License

promise-chaining is made available under the terms of the MIT license.