txain
v0.4.3
Published
A simple module for async control flow
Downloads
11
Readme
txain
A simple module for asynchronous control flow.
- Use callback-based async functions in a promise-like way
- Combine callback-based and promise-based functions in a natural way
- Iterate and manipulate arrays asynchronously with:
each
,map
,filter
,reject
,detect
andconcat
- Debug the result and execution of async functions easily with
.debug()
txain let's you organize your code like this:
txain(function(callback) {
someAsyncFunction('hello world', callback)
})
.then(function(a, b, c, callback) {
// `a`, `b` and `c` are parameters returned by `someAsyncFunction`
anotherAsyncFunction(a, b, callback)
})
.then(function(value, callback) {
// you can ignore the `callback` and return a promise
return promiseBasedFunction(value)
})
// if a function returns an array you can manipulate it
.map(function(file, callback) {
fs.readFile(file, callback)
})
.end(function(err, fileContents) {
if (err) return console.log('err', err)
// `fileContents` is an array with the content of all the files
// returned by `promiseBasedFunction`
console.dir(fileContents)
})
How it works
- When an error is passed to a
callback
or a promise fails then theend()
function is called with that error and no morethen()
functions are called. - When all the
then()
functions are called thenend()
is called with anull
error and the rest of arguments passed by the latestthen()
function. - txain automatically adjusts the number of arguments passed to the next function.
- If you don't pass a function to the
end()
method it returns a promise.
A near-real-world example
var txain = require('txain')
var fs = require('fs')
var dns = require('dns')
var path = require('path')
txain(function(callback) {
dns.lookup('google.com', callback)
})
.then(function(address, family, callback) {
fs.writeFile(path.join(__dirname, 'address.txt'), address, callback)
})
.then(function(callback) {
// more async functions
})
.end(function(err) {
if (err) return console.log('Error: '+err)
console.log('Done :)')
})
As you can see you can have many then()
functions but you can handle all errors in the same place, and additionally your code doesn't start nesting.
The get/set functions
Sometimes you want to call a function directly in the chain but then you can lose parameters from previous functions. No problem, you can solve this with the set
and get
functions. For instance in the previous example we are missing the family
variable in the following functions. This is how you can solve this:
var txain = require('txain')
var fs = require('fs')
var dns = require('dns')
var path = require('path')
txain(function(callback) {
dns.lookup('google.com', callback)
})
.then(function(address, family, callback) {
this.set('family', family)
fs.writeFile(path.join(__dirname, 'address.txt'), address, callback)
})
.then(function(callback) {
var family = this.get('family')
console.log('family', 'IPv'+family)
callback()
})
.end(function(err) {
if (err) return console.log('Error: '+err)
console.log('Done :)')
})
Iterating over collections
Like the well-known async
module, txain
also supports iterating over collections. You can use the each
, map
, reject
, filter
, detect
and concat
functions. All these functions expect that the previous function returns an array as first parameter. Then the array is iterated and the callback function passed to these functions is called for each item in the array.
The following is a real world example using reject
and map
. The following code gets a list of files in the current directory, then removes those files that are directories and then reads the content of all
var fs = require('fs')
function isDirectory(file, callback) {
fs.stat(file, function(err, stat) {
if (err) return callback(err)
callback(null, stat.isDirectory())
})
}
txain(function(callback) {
fs.readdir(__dirname, callback)
})
.reject(isDirectory)
.map(fs.readFile)
.end(function(err, files) {
if (err) return console.log('Error: '+err)
console.log('Done', files)
})
Available functions:
each
. Iterates all the items one by one. The next function won't receive additional arguments.map
. Iterates all the items one after the other and collects the first non-err argument in an array that is passed to the next function.filter
. Iterates all the items one after the other and collects those items that return a truly value in the callback function.reject
. Iterates all the items one after the other and collects those items that return a falsy value in the callback function.detect
. Iterates all the items one after the other stopping when an item returns a truly value in the callback function. That item is passed to the next function.concat
. The callback function is expected to return an array. This function then iterates all the items one after the other concatenating all the returned arrays and passing the result to the next function.
These functions also allow you to pass additional fixed arguments like for example:
txain(function(callback) {
fs.readdir(__dirname, callback)
})
.reject(isDirectory)
.map(fs.readFile, 'utf8') // read as UTF-8
.end(function(err, files) {
if (err) return console.log('Error: '+err)
console.log('Done', files)
})
Those functions that require a boolean argument such as filter
or reject
, unlike the similar functions in the async
module, require to pass two arguments to the callback function: err
(if any) and the boolean value. So in txain
you cannot use fs.exists
directly like this .map(fs.exists)
.
Other ways of creating a txain
In all the examples you can see that you crate a txain
with an initial function.
You can also create a txain
passing a function with arguments like this:
txain(fs.readdir, __dirname)
.filter(isDirectory)
.end(function(err, directories) {
if (err) return console.log('Error: '+err)
console.log('Done', directories)
})
And you can also create a txain
with any inital arguments like this:
txain(['foo.txt', 'bar.txt'])
.map(fs.readFile)
.end(function(err, files) {
if (err) return console.log('Error: '+err)
console.log('Done', files)
})
Combining this way of creating a taxin
and the ability to return a promise on .end()
if you don't pass any arguments you can create promises easily based on callback-based async functions like this.
var promise = txain(fs.readFile, __filename, 'utf8').end()
Utility functions
You can stop propagating arguments with the clean()
function like this:
txain(['foo.txt', 'bar.txt'])
.map(fs.readFile)
.clean()
.end(function(err, files) {
// here files is always undefined
})
You can print easily the arguments passed from one function to the next one adding a debug([message, [trace]])
call like this:
txain(['foo.txt', 'bar.txt'])
.map(fs.readFile)
.debug('An optional message', true)
.end(function(err, files) {
// here files is always undefined
})
If trace
is true
then the message will be printed using console.trace()
and with console.log()
otherwise. The arguments are printed using console.dir()