Pass in an array of Deferreds to $.when()

Question

Here's an contrived example of what's going on: http://jsfiddle.net/adamjford/YNGcm/20/

HTML:

<a href="#">Click me!</a>
<div></div>

JavaScript:

function getSomeDeferredStuff() {
    var deferreds = [];

    var i = 1;
    for (i = 1; i <= 10; i++) {
        var count = i;

        deferreds.push(
        $.post('/echo/html/', {
            html: "<p>Task #" + count + " complete.",
            delay: count
        }).success(function(data) {
            $("div").append(data);
        }));
    }

    return deferreds;
}

$(function() {
    $("a").click(function() {
        var deferreds = getSomeDeferredStuff();

        $.when(deferreds).done(function() {
            $("div").append("<p>All done!</p>");
        });
    });
});

I want "All done!" to appear after all of the deferred tasks have completed, but $.when() doesn't appear to know how to handle an array of Deferred objects. "All done!" is happening first because the array is not a Deferred object, so jQuery goes ahead and assumes it's just done.

I know one could pass the objects into the function like $.when(deferred1, deferred2, ..., deferredX) but it's unknown how many Deferred objects there will be at execution in the actual problem I'm trying to solve.

Answer 1

As a simple alternative, that does not require $.when.apply or an array, you can use the following pattern to generate a single promise for multiple parallel promises:

promise = $.when(promise, anotherPromise);

e.g.

function GetSomeDeferredStuff() {
    // Start with an empty resolved promise (or undefined does the same!)
    var promise;
    var i = 1;
    for (i = 1; i <= 5; i++) {
        var count = i;

        promise = $.when(promise,
        $.ajax({
            type: "POST",
            url: '/echo/html/',
            data: {
                html: "<p>Task #" + count + " complete.",
                delay: count / 2
            },
            success: function (data) {
                $("div").append(data);
            }
        }));
    }
    return promise;
}

$(function () {
    $("a").click(function () {
        var promise = GetSomeDeferredStuff();
        promise.then(function () {
            $("div").append("<p>All done!</p>");
        });
    });
});

Notes:

• I figured this one out after seeing someone chain promises sequentially, using promise = promise.then(newpromise)
• The downside is it creates extra promise objects behind the scenes and any parameters passed at the end are not very useful (as they are nested inside additional objects). For what you want though it is short and simple.
• The upside is it requires no array or array management.

Answer 2

You can apply the when method to your array:

var arr = [ /* Deferred objects */ ];

$.when.apply($, arr);

How do you work with an array of jQuery Deferreds?

Answer 3

When calling multiple parallel AJAX calls, you have two options for handling the respective responses.

1. Use Synchronous AJAX call/ one after another/ not recommended
2. Use Promises' array and $.when which accepts promises and its callback .done gets called when all the promises are return successfully with respective responses.

Example

function ajaxRequest(capitalCity) {
   return $.ajax({
        url: 'https://restcountries.eu/rest/v1/capital/'+capitalCity,
        success: function(response) {
        },
        error: function(response) {
          console.log("Error")
        }
    });
}
$(function(){
   var capitalCities = ['Delhi', 'Beijing', 'Washington', 'Tokyo', 'London'];
   $('#capitals').text(capitalCities);

   function getCountryCapitals(){ //do multiple parallel ajax requests
      var promises = [];   
      for(var i=0,l=capitalCities.length; i<l; i++){
            var promise = ajaxRequest(capitalCities[i]);
            promises.push(promise);
      }
  
      $.when.apply($, promises)
        .done(fillCountryCapitals);
   }
  
   function fillCountryCapitals(){
        var countries = [];
        var responses = arguments;
        for(i in responses){
            console.dir(responses[i]);
            countries.push(responses[i][0][0].nativeName)
        }  
        $('#countries').text(countries);
   }
  
   getCountryCapitals()
})

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<div>
  <h4>Capital Cities : </h4> <span id="capitals"></span>
  <h4>Respective Country's Native Names : </h4> <span id="countries"></span>
</div>