How to reject in async/await syntax?

Question

How can I reject a promise that returned by an async/await function?

e.g. Originally:

foo(id: string): Promise<A> {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    someAsyncPromise().then((value)=>resolve(200)).catch((err)=>reject(400))
  });
}

Translate into async/await:

async foo(id: string): Promise<A> {
  try{
    await someAsyncPromise();
    return 200;
  } catch(error) {//here goes if someAsyncPromise() rejected}
    return 400; //this will result in a resolved promise.
  });
}

So, how could I properly reject this promise in this case?

Answer 1

Your best bet is to throw an Error wrapping the value, which results in a rejected promise with an Error wrapping the value:

} catch (error) {
    throw new Error(400);
}

You can also just throw the value, but then there's no stack trace information:

} catch (error) {
    throw 400;
}

Alternately, return a rejected promise with an Error wrapping the value, but it's not idiomatic:

} catch (error) {
    return Promise.reject(new Error(400));
}

(Or just return Promise.reject(400);, but again, then there's no context information.)

In your case, as you're using TypeScript and foo's return value is Promise<A>, you'd use this:

return Promise.reject<A>(400 /*or Error*/ );

In an async/await situation, that last is probably a bit of a semantic mis-match, but it does work.

If you throw an Error, that plays well with anything consuming your foo's result with await syntax:

try {
    await foo();
} catch (error) {
    // Here, `error` would be an `Error` (with stack trace, etc.).
    // Whereas if you used `throw 400`, it would just be `400`.
}

Answer 2

It should probably also be mentioned that you can simply chain a catch() function after the call of your async operation because under the hood still a promise is returned.

await foo().catch(error => console.log(error));

This way you can avoid the try/catch syntax if you do not like it.

Answer 3

You can create a wrapper function that takes in a promise and returns an array with data if no error and the error if there was an error.

function safePromise(promise) {
  return promise.then(data => [ data ]).catch(error => [ null, error ]);
}

Use it like this in ES7 and in an async function:

async function checkItem() {
  const [ item, error ] = await safePromise(getItem(id));
  if (error) { return null; } // handle error and return
  return item; // no error so safe to use item
}

Answer 4

A better way to write the async function would be by returning a pending Promise from the start and then handling both rejections and resolutions within the callback of the promise, rather than just spitting out a rejected promise on error. Example:

async foo(id: string): Promise<A> {
    return new Promise(function(resolve, reject) {
        // execute some code here
        if (success) { // let's say this is a boolean value from line above
            return resolve(success);
        } else {
            return reject(error); // this can be anything, preferably an Error object to catch the stacktrace from this function
        }
    });
}

Then you just chain methods on the returned promise:

async function bar () {
    try {
        var result = await foo("someID")
        // use the result here
    } catch (error) {
        // handle error here
    }
}

bar()

Source - this tutorial:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Promise

Answer 5

This is not an answer over @T.J. Crowder's one. Just an comment responding to the comment "And actually, if the exception is going to be converted to a rejection, I'm not sure whether I am actually bothered if it's an Error. My reasons for throwing only Error probably don't apply."

if your code is using async/await, then it is still a good practice to reject with an Error instead of 400:

try {
  await foo('a');
}
catch (e) {
  // you would still want `e` to be an `Error` instead of `400`
}

Answer 6

I have a suggestion to properly handle rejects in a novel approach, without having multiple try-catch blocks.

import to from './to';

async foo(id: string): Promise<A> {
    let err, result;
    [err, result] = await to(someAsyncPromise()); // notice the to() here
    if (err) {
        return 400;
    }
    return 200;
}

Where the to.ts function should be imported from:

export default function to(promise: Promise<any>): Promise<any> {
    return promise.then(data => {
        return [null, data];
    }).catch(err => [err]);
}

Credits go to Dima Grossman in the following link.

Answer 7

I know this is an old question, but I just stumbled across the thread and there seems to be a conflation here between errors and rejection that runs afoul (in many cases, at least) of the oft-repeated advice not to use exception handling to deal with anticipated cases. To illustrate: if an async method is trying to authenticate a user and the authentication fails, that's a rejection (one of two anticipated cases) and not an error (e.g., if the authentication API was unavailable.)

To make sure I wasn't just splitting hairs, I ran a performance test of three different approaches to that, using this code:

const iterations = 100000;

function getSwitch() {
  return Math.round(Math.random()) === 1;
}

function doSomething(value) {
  return 'something done to ' + value.toString();
}

let processWithThrow = function () {
  if (getSwitch()) {
    throw new Error('foo');
  }
};

let processWithReturn = function () {
  if (getSwitch()) {
    return new Error('bar');
  } else {
    return {}
  }
};

let processWithCustomObject = function () {
  if (getSwitch()) {
    return {type: 'rejection', message: 'quux'};
  } else {
    return {type: 'usable response', value: 'fnord'};
  }
};

function testTryCatch(limit) {
  for (let i = 0; i < limit; i++) {
    try {
      processWithThrow();
    } catch (e) {
      const dummyValue = doSomething(e);
    }
  }
}

function testReturnError(limit) {
  for (let i = 0; i < limit; i++) {
    const returnValue = processWithReturn();
    if (returnValue instanceof Error) {
      const dummyValue = doSomething(returnValue);
    }
  }
}

function testCustomObject(limit) {
  for (let i = 0; i < limit; i++) {
    const returnValue = processWithCustomObject();
    if (returnValue.type === 'rejection') {
      const dummyValue = doSomething(returnValue);
    }
  }
}

let start, end;
start = new Date();
testTryCatch(iterations);
end = new Date();
const interval_1 = end - start;
start = new Date();
testReturnError(iterations);
end = new Date();
const interval_2 = end - start;
start = new Date();
testCustomObject(iterations);
end = new Date();
const interval_3 = end - start;

console.log(`with try/catch: ${interval_1}ms; with returned Error: ${interval_2}ms; with custom object: ${interval_3}ms`);

Some of the stuff that's in there is included because of my uncertainty regarding the Javascript interpreter (I only like to go down one rabbit hole at a time); for instance, I included the doSomething function and assigned its return to dummyValue to ensure that the conditional blocks wouldn't get optimized out.

My results were:

with try/catch: 507ms; with returned Error: 260ms; with custom object: 5ms

I know that there are plenty of cases where it's not worth the trouble to hunt down small optimizations, but in larger-scale systems these things can make a big cumulative difference, and that's a pretty stark comparison.

SO… while I think the accepted answer's approach is sound in cases where you're expecting to have to handle unpredictable errors within an async function, in cases where a rejection simply means "you're going to have to go with Plan B (or C, or D…)" I think my preference would be to reject using a custom response object.