Giphy API in Discord Bot async function

Question

I started to program a Discord-Bot, he hasn't that much functions at the moment. So at the moment im working on the command "!gif", so I type that command with an word (here it is "spider"), as a reponse I get a gif with a Spider-Tag.

So here is my Discord-Code:

if(command == "gif"){
   message.channel.send(modSearchGif.searchForGif("spider"));  
}

modSearchGif is a module which is implemented in this .js script.

The Module looks like this:

var GphApiClient = require('giphy-js-sdk-core')
const client = GphApiClient(process.env.GIPHYTOKEN)

const searchForGif = (gifName) => {
client.search('gifs', {"q": gifName, "limit": 1})
.then((response) => {
   var gif = response.data[0].url;
   return gif;
 })
 .catch((err) => {
  return err;
 })
}

module.exports.searchForGif = searchForGif;

So its really easy, if the command "gif" is writen in the Discord-Channel, the Bot is calling the module and give it the parameter "spider". Then the client search for this parameter in the giphy database and returns a json script. This is a Promise, if the Promise is fullfilled the gif is returned to the mainscript and will be send to the Discord-Channel.

Here is the Problem, the Promise call is async, so the Discord Command "message.channel.send" is executed before the promise is fullfilled, so the message is undefined and i get an error "Cannot send empty message".

I want the message.channel.send executed when the gif is returned, not earlier.

I really have no clue about this. Have you guys some ideas?

Thank you in advance!

fl9 fl9 · Accepted Answer · 2018-01-30T20:14:59

I would try something like this, as then/catch also returns a Promise

if(command == "gif"){
   var searchPromise = modSearchGif.searchForGif("spider");

   searchPromise.then((gif) => {
     message.channel.send(gif);
   })  
}

For this to work searchForGif should return the Promise, i.e.,

const searchForGif = (gifName) => {
  return client.search('gifs', {"q": gifName, "limit": 1})
         .then((response) => {
           var gif = response.data[0].url;
           return gif;
         })
         .catch((err) => {
           return err;
         })
}

Giphy API in Discord Bot async function

1 Answers