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Gandharv
Gandharv

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JavaScript async and await in loops

Basic async and await is simple.

Things get a bit more complicated when you try to use await in loops.

Let's discuss further about in this article.

Prerequisite:

I’m going to assume you know how to use async and await. If you don’t, you can check it out here

Await in a for loop

for (let index = 0; index < iterable.length; index++) {
  const value = await remoteApiCall();
}
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for await (const variable of iterable) {
  const value = await remoteApiCall();
}
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When you use await, you expect JavaScript to pause execution until the awaited promise gets resolved. This means awaits in a for-loop gets executed in series.

Same behaviour with while & for-of loops, i.e. all awaits gets executed in series one after another.

Loops that require a callback

await won’t work with loops that require a callback. Examples of such loops that require a callback i.e.

  • forEach
  • map
  • filter
  • reduce

Using await in loops with a callback

...
console.log('start')
const promises = iterable.map(remoteApiCall)
const values = await Promise.all(promises) // using promise.all is key
console.log(values)
console.log('end')
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The console logs are printed in order.

Summary

  • await doesn't work with loop in callback in serial fashion.
  • The solution is to use await Promise.all(...) where you pass all the promises

Top comments (1)

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ahmad_butt_faa7e5cc876ea7 profile image
Ahmad

very interesting ! did not know this about Promise.All ... at.all

from MDN: developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/W...

"Returned values will be in order of the Promises passed, regardless of completion order."