Retrieve parsed data from CSV in Javascript object

Question

I'm sort of embarrassed to ask this question because it seems like it should be so obvious, but I'm pretty weak on dealing with async problems, and I'm confused on how to proceed.

I'm using Papa Parse (http://papaparse.com/docs.html#remote-files) to parse a remote CSV. I want to stash the result of the parse in an object to use later. Here's my code:

var dataset = {};    

    Papa.parse("http://path/to/some.csv", {
      download: true,
      dynamicTyping: true,
      complete: function(results) {
        dataset = results.data;
      }
    });

console.log(dataset);  

This, of course, results in an empty object being logged to the console. Any attempts at using dataset don't work because, of course, the dataset object hasn't actually received its data by the time the code executes. Can someone please help me refactor or explain how I deal with this?

Answer 1

Is there a reason the dataset variable needs to be used outside of the function? The easiest way to ensure that the dataset is populated is to manipulate the dataset in the 'complete' function right after it is, well, populated.

An alternative is to add a callback like so:

function doStuff(data) {
    //Data is usable here
    console.log(data);
}

function parseData(url, callBack) {
    Papa.parse(url, {
        download: true,
        dynamicTyping: true,
        complete: function(results) {
            callBack(results.data);
        }
    });
}

parseData("tests/sample.csv", doStuff);