Await is a reserved word error inside async function

Question

I am struggling to figure out the issue with the following syntax:

export const sendVerificationEmail = async () =>
  (dispatch) => {
    try {
      dispatch({ type: EMAIL_FETCHING, payload: true });
      await Auth.sendEmailVerification();
      dispatch({ type: EMAIL_FETCHING, payload: false }))
    } catch (error) {
      dispatch({ type: EMAIL_FETCHING, payload: false });
      throw new Error(error);
    }
  };

I keep getting error saying:

await is a reserved word

...but isn't it legal within an async function?

The dispatch bit is coming from the react-thunk library.

It's not inside an async function. It's inside the function that starts with (dispatch) => , and that's not async. Why do you have the sendVerificationEmail returning another function instead of carrying out some action? — JLRishe
@JLRishe indeed it needs to be async (dispatch) => you could post that as an answer, I need to return it in order to get access to dispatch — Ilja

JLRishe JLRishe · Accepted Answer · 2017-02-17T13:57:13

In order to use await, the function directly enclosing it needs to be async. According to your comment, adding async to the inner function fixes your issue, so I'll post that here:

export const sendVerificationEmail = async () =>
  async (dispatch) => {
    try {
      dispatch({ type: EMAIL_FETCHING, payload: true });
      await Auth.sendEmailVerification();
      dispatch({ type: EMAIL_FETCHING, payload: false }))
    } catch (error) {
      dispatch({ type: EMAIL_FETCHING, payload: false });
      throw new Error(error);
    }
  };

Possibly, you could remove the async from the outer function because it does not contain any asynchronous operations, but that would depend on whether the caller of that sendVerificationEmail is expecting sendVerificationEmail to return a promise or not.

Await is a reserved word error inside async function

2 Answers