Unexpected identifier when running on node using openpgp library

Question

I am working on OpenPGP encryption using node. This is my referencing library. When I run a demo I got following error.

openpgpTest.js:32 message: await openpgp.message.readArmored(encrypted), // parse armored message ^^^^^^^

SyntaxError: Unexpected identifier at createScript (vm.js:80:10) at Object.runInThisContext (vm.js:139:10) at Module._compile (module.js:599:28) at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:646:10) at Module.load (module.js:554:32) at tryModuleLoad (module.js:497:12) at Function.Module._load (module.js:489:3) at Function.Module.runMain (module.js:676:10) at startup (bootstrap_node.js:187:16) at bootstrap_node.js:608:3

Below is my code

 var openpgp = require('openpgp'); // use as CommonJS, AMD, ES6 module or via window.openpgp

openpgp.initWorker({ path:'openpgp.worker.js' })


// put keys in backtick (``) to avoid errors caused by spaces or tabs
const pubkey = `-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
...
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----`
const privkey = `-----BEGIN PGP PRIVATE KEY BLOCK-----
...
-----END PGP PRIVATE KEY BLOCK-----` //encrypted private key
const passphrase = `yourPassphrase` //what the privKey is encrypted with

const encryptDecryptFunction = async() => {
    console.log("init",openpgp)
    const privKeyObj = (await openpgp.key.readArmored(privkey)).keys[0]
    await privKeyObj.decrypt(passphrase)

    const options = {
        message: openpgp.message.fromText('Hello, World!'),       // input as Message object
        publicKeys: (await openpgp.key.readArmored(pubkey)).keys, // for encryption
        privateKeys: [privKeyObj]                                 // for signing (optional)
    }
    console.log("init",options)
    openpgp.encrypt(options).then(ciphertext => {
        encrypted = ciphertext.data // '-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE ... END PGP MESSAGE-----'
        return encrypted
    })
    .then(encrypted => {
        const options = {
            message: await openpgp.message.readArmored(encrypted),    // parse armored message
            publicKeys: (await openpgp.key.readArmored(pubkey)).keys, // for verification (optional)
            privateKeys: [privKeyObj]                                 // for decryption
        }

        openpgp.decrypt(options).then(plaintext => {
            console.log(plaintext.data)
            return plaintext.data // 'Hello, World!'
        })

    })
}

encryptDecryptFunction()

Is anyone knows why I am getting this error? I run this code in cmd on a windows system.

No, I keep getting errors as well when trying to run it inside a browser (no node.js). Could someone from the openpgp.js/protonmail provide a more detailed specification? — codebird456

Igor Litvinovich Igor Litvinovich · Accepted Answer · 2019-03-15T08:56:15

await can't be used outside of an async function. You can add async into your .then so that you can use await inside.

.then(async(encrypted) => {
    const options = {
        message: await openpgp.message.readArmored(encrypted),    // parse armored message
        publicKeys: (await openpgp.key.readArmored(pubkey)).keys, // for verification (optional)
        privateKeys: [privKeyObj]                                 // for decryption
    }

    openpgp.decrypt(options).then(plaintext => {
        console.log(plaintext.data)
        return plaintext.data // 'Hello, World!'
    })

})

But I'd rather recommend refactoring your code as following to get rid of redundant .then. You don't need them since you use async/await.

const encryptDecryptFunction = async () => {
    console.log("init", openpgp)
    const privKeyObj = (await openpgp.key.readArmored(privkey)).keys[0]
    await privKeyObj.decrypt(passphrase)

    const options = {
        message: openpgp.message.fromText('Hello, World!'),       // input as Message object
        publicKeys: (await openpgp.key.readArmored(pubkey)).keys, // for encryption
        privateKeys: [privKeyObj]                                 // for signing (optional)
    }
    console.log("init", options)
    const { data: encripted } = await openpgp.encrypt(options)

    const options = {
        message: await openpgp.message.readArmored(encrypted),    // parse armored message
        publicKeys: (await openpgp.key.readArmored(pubkey)).keys, // for verification (optional)
        privateKeys: [privKeyObj]                                 // for decryption
    }

    const plaintext = await openpgp.decrypt(options);
    console.log(plaintext.data)
    return plaintext.data // 'Hello, World!'
}

Unexpected identifier when running on node using openpgp library

1 Answers