How can I synchronously determine a JavaScript Pro

Question

I have a pure JavaScript Promise (built-in implementation or poly-fill):

var promise = new Promise(function (resolve, reject) { /* ... */ });

From the specification, a Promise can be one of:

• 'settled' and 'resolved'
• 'settled' and 'rejected'
• 'pending'

I have a use case where I wish to interrogate the Promise synchronously and determine:

• is the Promise settled?

• if so, is the Promise resolved?

I know that I can use #then() to schedule work to be performed asynchronously after the Promise changes state. I am NOT asking how to do this.

This question is specifically about synchronous interrogation of a Promise's state. How can I achieve this?

Answer 1

No such synchronous inspection API exists for native JavaScript promises. It is impossible to do this with native promises. The specification does not specify such a method.

Userland libraries can do this, and if you're targeting a specific engine (like v8) and have access to platform code (that is, you can write code in core) then you can use specific tools (like private symbols) to achieve this. That's super specific though and not in userland.

Answer 2

promise-status-async does the trick. It is async but it does not use then to wait the promise to be resolved.

const {promiseStatus} = require('promise-status-async');
// ...
if (await promiseStatus(promise) === 'pending') {
    const idle = new Promise(function(resolve) {
        // can do some IDLE job meanwhile
    });
    return idle;
}

Answer 3

As of Node.js version 8, you can now use the wise-inspection package to synchronously inspect native promises (without any dangerous hacks).

Answer 4

I found this solution to be simple and allow me to continue using native promises but add useful synchronous checks. I also didn't have to pull in an entire promise library.

CAVEAT: This only works if there is some sort of break in the current execution thread to allow the promises to execute BEFORE checking the synchronous constructs. That makes this of more limited usefulness than I'd initially thought -- still useful for my use case though (Thanks Benjamin Gruenbaum for pointing this out)

/**
 * This function allow you to modify a JS Promise by adding some status properties.
 * Based on: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21485545/is-there-a-way-to-tell-if-an-es6-promise-is-fulfilled-rejected-resolved
 * But modified according to the specs of promises : https://promisesaplus.com/
 */
function MakeQuerablePromise(promise) {
    // Don't modify any promise that has been already modified.
    if (promise.isFulfilled) return promise;

    // Set initial state
    var isPending = true;
    var isRejected = false;
    var isFulfilled = false;

    // Observe the promise, saving the fulfillment in a closure scope.
    var result = promise.then(
        function(v) {
            isFulfilled = true;
            isPending = false;
            return v; 
        }, 
        function(e) {
            isRejected = true;
            isPending = false;
            throw e; 
        }
    );

    result.isFulfilled = function() { return isFulfilled; };
    result.isPending = function() { return isPending; };
    result.isRejected = function() { return isRejected; };
    return result;
}

wrappedPromise = MakeQueryablePromise(Promise.resolve(3)); 
setTimeout(function() {console.log(wrappedPromise.isFulfilled())}, 1);

From https://ourcodeworld.com/articles/read/317/how-to-check-if-a-javascript-promise-has-been-fulfilled-rejected-or-resolved which based their answer on Is there a way to tell if an ES6 promise is fulfilled/rejected/resolved?

Answer 5

This is older question but I was trying to do something similar. I need to keep n workers going. They are structured in a promise. I need to scan and see if they are resolved, rejected or still pending. If resolved, I need the value, if rejected do something to correct the issue or pending. If resolved or rejected I need to start another task to keep n going. I can't figure a way to do it with Promise.all or Promise.race as I keep working promises in an array and can find no way to delete them. So I create a worker that does the trick

I need a promise generator function that returns a promise which resolves or rejects as necessary. It is called by a function that sets up the framework to know what the promise is doing.

In the code below the generator simply returns a promise based on setTimeout.

Here it is

//argObj should be of form
// {succeed: <true or false, nTimer: <desired time out>}
function promiseGenerator(argsObj) {
  let succeed = argsObj.succeed;          
  let nTimer = argsObj.nTimer;
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    setTimeout(() => {
      if (succeed) {
        resolve('ok');
      }
      else {
        reject(`fail`);
      }
    }, nTimer);
  })

}

function doWork(generatorargs) {
  let sp = { state: `pending`, value: ``, promise: "" };
  let p1 = promiseGenerator(generatorargs)
    .then((value) => {
      sp.state = "resolved";
      sp.value = value;
    })
    .catch((err) => {
      sp.state = "rejected";
      sp.value = err;
    })
  sp.promise = p1;
  return sp;
}

doWork returns an object containing the promise and the its state and returned value.

The following code runs a loop that tests the state and creates new workers to keep it at 3 running workers.

let promiseArray = [];

promiseArray.push(doWork({ succeed: true, nTimer: 1000 }));
promiseArray.push(doWork({ succeed: true, nTimer: 500 }));
promiseArray.push(doWork({ succeed: false, nTimer: 3000 }));

function loopTimerPromise(delay) {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    setTimeout(() => {
      resolve('ok');
    }, delay)
  })
}

async function looper() {
  let nPromises = 3;      //just for breaking loop
  let nloop = 0;          //just for breaking loop
  let i;
  //let continueLoop = true;
  while (true) {
    await loopTimerPromise(900);  //execute loop every 900ms
    nloop++;
    //console.log(`promiseArray.length = ${promiseArray.length}`);
    for (i = promiseArray.length; i--; i > -1) {
      console.log(`index ${i} state: ${promiseArray[i].state}`);
      switch (promiseArray[i].state) {
        case "pending":
          break;
        case "resolved":
          nPromises++;
          promiseArray.splice(i, 1);
          promiseArray.push(doWork({ succeed: true, nTimer: 1000 }));
          break;
        case "rejected":
          //take recovery action
          nPromises++;
          promiseArray.splice(i, 1);
          promiseArray.push(doWork({ succeed: false, nTimer: 500 }));
          break;
        default:
          console.log(`error bad state in i=${i} state:${promiseArray[i].state} `)
          break;
      }
    }
    console.log(``);
    if (nloop > 10 || nPromises > 10) {
      //should do a Promise.all on remaining promises to clean them up but not for test
      break;
    }
  }
}

looper();

Tested in node.js

BTW Not in this answer so much but in others on similar topics, I HATE it when someone says "you don't understand" or "that's not how it works" I generally assume the questioner knows what they want. Suggesting a better way is great. A patient explanation of how promises work would also be good.

Answer 6

Nope, no sync API, but here's my version of the async promiseState (with help from @Matthijs):

function promiseState(p) {
  const t = {};
  return Promise.race([p, t])
    .then(v => (v === t)? "pending" : "fulfilled", () => "rejected");
}

var a = Promise.resolve();
var b = Promise.reject();
var c = new Promise(() => {});

promiseState(a).then(state => console.log(state)); // fulfilled
promiseState(b).then(state => console.log(state)); // rejected
promiseState(c).then(state => console.log(state)); // pending