ES2018: asynchronous iteration

[2016-10-02] dev, javascript, esnext, async, es2018

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Warning: This blog post is outdated. Instead, read chapter

“Asynchronous iteration” in “JavaScript for impatient programmers”.

This blog post explains the ECMAScript proposal “Asynchronous Iteration”

by Domenic Denicola and Kevin Smith. It has reached stage 4 on 2018-01-25
and is part of ECMAScript 2018.

1 Asynchronous iteration
With ECMAScript 6, JavaScript got built-in support for synchronously
iterating over data. But what about data that is delivered asynchronously?
For example, lines of text, read asynchronously from a file or an HTTP
connection.

This proposal brings support for that kind of data. Before we go into it, let’s
first recap synchronous iteration.

1.1 Synchronous iteration

Synchronous iteration was introduced with ES6 and works as follows:

Iterable: an object that signals that it can be iterated over, via a

method whose key is Symbol.iterator.
Iterator: an object returned by invoking [Symbol.iterator]() on an
iterable. It wraps each iterated element in an object and returns it via
its method next() – one at a time.
IteratorResult: an object returned by next(). Property value contains
an iterated element, property done is true after the last element (value
can usually be ignored then; it’s almost always undefined).

I’ll demonstrate via an Array:

 > const iterable = ['a', 'b'];
> const iterator = iterable[Symbol.iterator]();
> iterator.next()
{ value: 'a', done: false }
> iterator.next()
{ value: 'b', done: false }
> iterator.next()
{ value: undefined, done: true }

1.2 Asynchronous iteration

The problem is that the previously explained way of iterating is

synchronous, it doesn’t work for asynchronous sources of data. For
example, in the following code, readLinesFromFile() cannot deliver its
asynchronous data via synchronous iteration:

for (const line of readLinesFromFile(fileName)) {

console.log(line);
}

The proposal specifies a new protocol for iteration that works

asynchronously:

Async iterables are marked via Symbol.asyncIterator.

Method next() of an async iterator returns Promises for
IteratorResults (vs. IteratorResults directly).

You may wonder whether it would be possible to instead use a

synchronous iterator that returns one Promise for each iterated element.
But that is not enough – whether or not iteration is done is generally
determined asynchronously.

Using an asynchronous iterable looks as follows. Function

createAsyncIterable() is explained later. It converts its synchronously
iterable parameter into an async iterable.

const asyncIterable = createAsyncIterable(['a', 'b']);

const asyncIterator = asyncIterable[Symbol.asyncIterator]();
asyncIterator.next()
.then(iterResult1 => {
console.log(iterResult1); // { value: 'a', done: false }
return asyncIterator.next();
 })
.then(iterResult2 => {
console.log(iterResult2); // { value: 'b', done: false }
return asyncIterator.next();
})
.then(iterResult3 => {
console.log(iterResult3); // { value: undefined, done: true }
});

Within an asynchronous function, you can process the results of the

Promises via await and the code becomes simpler:

async function f() {

const asyncIterable = createAsyncIterable(['a', 'b']);
const asyncIterator = asyncIterable[Symbol.asyncIterator]();
console.log(await asyncIterator.next());
// { value: 'a', done: false }
console.log(await asyncIterator.next());
// { value: 'b', done: false }
console.log(await asyncIterator.next());
// { value: undefined, done: true }
}

1.3 The interfaces for async iteration

In TypeScript notation, the interfaces look as follows.

interface AsyncIterable {
[Symbol.asyncIterator]() : AsyncIterator;
}
interface AsyncIterator {
next() : Promise<IteratorResult>;
}
interface IteratorResult {
value: any;
done: boolean;
}

2 for-await-of
The proposal also specifies an asynchronous version of the for-of loop:
for-await-of:

async function f() {

for await (const x of createAsyncIterable(['a', 'b'])) {
console.log(x);
}
}
// Output:
// a
// b

2.1 for-await-of and rejections

Similarly to how await works in async functions, the loop throws an

exception if next() returns a rejection:

function createRejectingIterable() {
return {
[Symbol.asyncIterator]() {
return this;
},
next() {
return Promise.reject(new Error('Problem!'));
},
};
}
(async function () { // (A)
try {
for await (const x of createRejectingIterable()) {
console.log(x);
}
} catch (e) {
console.error(e);
// Error: Problem!
}
})(); // (B)

Note that we have just used an Immediately Invoked Async Function

Expression (IIAFE, pronounced “yaffee”). It starts in line (A) and ends in
line (B). We need to do that because for-of-await doesn’t work at the top
level of modules and scripts. It does work everywhere where await can be
used. Namely, in async functions and async generators (which are
explained later).

2.2 for-await-of and sync iterables

for-await-of can also be used to iterate over sync iterables:

(async function () {
for await (const x of ['a', 'b']) {
console.log(x);
}
})();
// Output:
// a
// b

for-await-of converts each iterated value via Promise.resolve() to a

Promise, which it then awaits. That means that it works for both Promises
and normal values.

3 Asynchronous generators
Normal (synchronous) generators help with implementing synchronous
iterables. Asynchronous generators do the same for asynchronous
iterables.

For example, we have previously used the function

createAsyncIterable(syncIterable) which converts a syncIterable into an
asynchronous iterable. This is how you would implement this function via
an async generator:

async function* createAsyncIterable(syncIterable) {

for (const elem of syncIterable) {
yield elem;
}
}

Note the asterisk after function:

A normal function is turned into a normal generator by putting an

asterisk after function.
 An async function is turned into an async generator by doing the
same.

How do async generators work?

A normal generator returns a generator object genObj. Each

invocation genObj.next() returns an object {value,done} that wraps a
yielded value.
An async generator returns a generator object genObj. Each invocation
genObj.next() returns a Promise for an object {value,done} that
wraps a yielded value.

3.1 Queuing next() invocations

The JavaScript engine internally queues invocations of next() and feeds

them to an async generator once it is ready. That is, after calling next(), you
can call again, right away; you don’t have to wait for the Promise it returns
to be settled. In most cases, though, you do want to wait for the settlement,
because you need the value of done in order to decide whether to call
next() again or not. That’s how the for-await-of loop works.

Use cases for calling next() several times without waiting for settlements
include:

Use case: Retrieving Promises to be processed via Promise.all(). If you

know how many elements there are in an async iterable, you don’t need to
check done.

const asyncGenObj = createAsyncIterable(['a', 'b']);

const [{value:v1},{value:v2}] = await Promise.all([
asyncGenObj.next(), asyncGenObj.next()
]);
console.log(v1, v2); // a b

Use case: Async generators as sinks for data, where you don’t always need
to know when they are done.

const writer = openFile('someFile.txt');

writer.next('hello'); // don’t wait
writer.next('world'); // don’t wait
await writer.return(); // wait for file to close
Acknowledgement: Thanks to @domenic and @zenparsing for these use
cases.

3.2 await in async generators

You can use await and for-await-of inside async generators. For example:

async function* prefixLines(asyncIterable) {

for await (const line of asyncIterable) {
yield '> ' + line;
}
}

One interesting aspect of combining await and yield is that await can’t stop
yield from returning a Promise, but it can stop that Promise from being
settled:

async function* asyncGenerator() {

console.log('Start');
const result = await doSomethingAsync(); // (A)
yield 'Result: '+result; // (B)
console.log('Done');
}

Let’s take a closer look at line (A) and (B):

The yield in line (B) fulfills a Promise. That Promise is returned by

next() immediately.
Before that Promise is fulfilled, the operand of await (the Promise
returned by doSomethingAsync() in line (A)) must be fulfilled.

That means that these two lines correspond (roughly) to this code:

return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {

doSomethingAsync()
.then(result => {
resolve({
value: 'Result: '+result,
done: false,
});
});
});
If you want to dig deeper – this is a rough approximation of how async
generators work:

const BUSY = Symbol('BUSY');

const COMPLETED = Symbol('COMPLETED');
function asyncGenerator() {
const settlers = [];
let step = 0;
return {
[Symbol.asyncIterator]() {
return this;
},
next() {
return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
settlers.push({resolve, reject});
this._run();
});
}
_run() {
setTimeout(() => {
if (step === BUSY || settlers.length === 0) {
return;
}
const currentSettler = settlers.shift();
try {
switch (step) {
case 0:
step = BUSY;
console.log('Start');
doSomethingAsync()
.then(result => {
currentSettler.resolve({
value: 'Result: '+result,
done: false,
});
// We are not busy, anymore
step = 1;
this._run();
})
.catch(e => currentSettler.reject(e));
 break;
case 1:
console.log('Done');
currentSettler.resolve({
value: undefined,
done: true,
});
step = COMPLETED;
this._run();
break;
case COMPLETED:
currentSettler.resolve({
value: undefined,
done: true,
});
this._run();
break;
}
}
catch (e) {
currentSettler.reject(e);
}
}, 0);
}
}
}

This code assumes that next() is always called without arguments. A

complete implementation would have to queue arguments, too.

3.3 yield* in async generators

yield* in async generators works analogously to how it works in normal

generators – like a recursive invocation:

async function* gen1() {

yield 'a';
yield 'b';
return 2;
}
async function* gen2() {
 const result = yield* gen1(); // (A)
// result === 2
}

In line (A), gen2() calls gen1(), which means that all elements yielded by
gen1() are yielded by gen2():

(async function () {
for await (const x of gen2()) {
console.log(x);
}
})();
// Output:
// a
// b

The operand of yield* can be any async iterable. Sync iterables are
automatically converted to async iterables, just like for for-await-of.

3.4 Errors

In normal generators, next() can throw exceptions. In async generators,

next() can reject the Promise it returns:

async function* asyncGenerator() {

// The following exception is converted to a rejection
throw new Error('Problem!');
}
asyncGenerator().next()
.catch(err => console.log(err)); // Error: Problem!

Converting exceptions to rejections is similar to how async functions work.

3.5 Async function vs. async generator function

Async function:

Returns immediately with a Promise.

That Promise is fulfilled via return and rejected via throw.

(async function () {
return 'hello';
})()
 .then(x => console.log(x)); // hello

(async function () {
throw new Error('Problem!');
})()
.catch(x => console.error(x)); // Error: Problem!

Async generator function:

Returns immediately with an async iterable.

Every invocation of next() returns a Promise. yield x fulfills the
“current” Promise with {value: x, done: false}. throw err rejects
the “current” Promise with err.

async function* gen() {

yield 'hello';
}
const genObj = gen();
genObj.next().then(x => console.log(x));
// { value: 'hello', done: false }

4 Examples

The source code for the examples is available via the repository async-
iter-demo on GitHub.

4.1 Using asynchronous iteration via Babel

The example repo uses babel-node to run its code. This is how it configures
Babel in its package.json:

{
"dependencies": {
"babel-preset-es2015-node": "···",
"babel-preset-es2016": "···",
"babel-preset-es2017": "···",
"babel-plugin-transform-async-generator-functions": "···"
···
},
"babel": {
"presets": [
 "es2015-node",
"es2016",
"es2017"
],
"plugins": [
"transform-async-generator-functions"
]
},
···
}

4.2 Example: turning an async iterable into an Array

Function takeAsync() collects all elements of asyncIterable in an Array. I

don’t use for-await-of in this case, I invoke the async iteration protocol
manually. I also don’t close asyncIterable if I’m finished before the iterable
is done.

/**
* @returns a Promise for an Array with the elements
* in `asyncIterable`
*/
async function takeAsync(asyncIterable, count=Infinity) {
const result = [];
const iterator = asyncIterable[Symbol.asyncIterator]();
while (result.length < count) {
const {value,done} = await iterator.next();
if (done) break;
result.push(value);
}
return result;
}

This is the test for takeAsync():

test('Collect values yielded by an async generator', async function(

async function* gen() {
yield 'a';
yield 'b';
yield 'c';
}
 assert.deepStrictEqual(await takeAsync(gen()), ['a', 'b', 'c']);
assert.deepStrictEqual(await takeAsync(gen(), 3), ['a', 'b', 'c'
assert.deepStrictEqual(await takeAsync(gen(), 2), ['a', 'b']);
assert.deepStrictEqual(await takeAsync(gen(), 1), ['a']);
assert.deepStrictEqual(await takeAsync(gen(), 0), []);
});

Note how nicely async functions work together with the mocha test
framework: for asynchronous tests, the second parameter of test() can
return a Promise.

4.3 Example: a queue as an async iterable

The example repo also has an implementation for an asynchronous queue,

called AsyncQueue. It’s implementation is relatively complex, which is why I
don’t show it here. This is the test for AsyncQueue:

test('Enqueue before dequeue', async function() {

const queue = new AsyncQueue();
queue.enqueue('a');
queue.enqueue('b');
queue.close();
assert.deepStrictEqual(await takeAsync(queue), ['a', 'b']);
});
test('Dequeue before enqueue', async function() {
const queue = new AsyncQueue();
const promise = Promise.all([queue.next(), queue.next()]);
queue.enqueue('a');
queue.enqueue('b');
return promise.then(arr => {
const values = arr.map(x => x.value);
assert.deepStrictEqual(values, ['a', 'b']);
});
});

4.4 Example: reading text lines asynchronously

Let’s implement code that reads text lines asynchronously. We’ll do it in

three steps.
Step 1: read text data in chunks via the Node.js ReadStream API (which is
based on callbacks) and push it into an AsyncQueue (which was introduced
in the previous section).

/**
* Creates an asynchronous ReadStream for the file whose name
* is `fileName` and feeds it into an AsyncQueue that it returns.
*
* @returns an async iterable
*/
function readFile(fileName) {
const queue = new AsyncQueue();
const readStream = createReadStream(fileName,
{ encoding: 'utf8', bufferSize: 1024 });
readStream.on('data', buffer => {
const str = buffer.toString('utf8');
queue.enqueue(str);
});
readStream.on('end', () => {
// Signal end of output sequence
queue.close();
});
return queue;
}

Step 2: Use for-await-of to iterate over the chunks of text and yield lines of
text.

/**
* Turns a sequence of text chunks into a sequence of lines
* (where lines are separated by newlines)
*
* @returns an async iterable
*/
async function* splitLines(chunksAsync) {
let previous = '';
for await (const chunk of chunksAsync) {
previous += chunk;
let eolIndex;
while ((eolIndex = previous.indexOf('\n')) >= 0) {
const line = previous.slice(0, eolIndex);
 yield line;
previous = previous.slice(eolIndex+1);
}
}
if (previous.length > 0) {
yield previous;
}
}

Step 3: combine the two previous functions. We first feed chunks of text
into a queue via readFile() and then convert that queue into an async
iterable over lines of text via splitLines().

/**
* @returns an async iterable
*/
function readLines(fileName) {
// `queue` is an async iterable
const queue = readFile(fileName);
return splitLines(queue);
}

Lastly, this is how you’d use readLines() from within a Node.js script:

(async function () {
const fileName = process.argv[2];
for await (const line of readLines(fileName)) {
console.log('>', line);
}
})();

5 WHATWG Streams are async iterables

WHATWG streams are async iterables, meaning that you can use for-
await-of to process them:

const rs = openReadableStream();
for await (const chunk of rs) {
···
}
6 The specification of asynchronous
iteration
The spec introduces several new concepts and entities:

Two new interfaces, AsyncIterable and AsyncIterator

New well-known intrinsic objects: %AsyncGenerator%,
%AsyncFromSyncIteratorPrototype%, %AsyncGeneratorFunction%,
%AsyncGeneratorPrototype%, %AsyncIteratorPrototype%.
One new well-known symbol: Symbol.asyncIterator

No new global variables are introduced by this feature.

6.1 Async generators

If you want to understand how async generators work, it’s best to start with
Sect. “AsyncGenerator Abstract Operations”. They key to understanding
async generators is to understand how queuing works.

Two internal properties of async generator objects play important roles

w.r.t. queuing:

[[AsyncGeneratorState]] contains the state the generator is currently

in: "suspendedStart", "suspendedYield", "executing", "completed" (it is
undefined before it is fully initialized)
[[AsyncGeneratorQueue]] holds pending invocations of
next/throw/return. Each queue entry contains two fields:
[[Completion]]: the parameter of next(), throw() or return()
that lead to the entry being enqueued. The type of the
completion (normal, throw, return) indicates which method call
created the entry and determines what happens after
dequeuing.
[[Capability]]: the PromiseCapability of the pending Promise.

The queue is managed mainly via two operations:

Enqueuing happens via AsyncGeneratorEnqueue(). This is the

operation that is called by next(), return() and throw(). It adds an
entry to the AsyncGeneratorQueue. Then AsyncGeneratorResumeNext()
is called, but only if the generator’s state isn’t "executing":
 Therefore, if a generator calls next(), return() or throw() from
inside itself then the effects of that call will be delayed.
await leads to a suspension of the generator, but its state
remains "executing". Hence, it will not be resumed by
AsyncGeneratorEnqueue().

Dequeuing happens via AsyncGeneratorResumeNext().

AsyncGeneratorResumeNext() is invoked after enqueuing, but also after
settling a queued Promise (e.g. via yield), because there may now be
new queued pending Promises, allowing execution to continue. If the
queue is empty, return immediately. Otherwise, the current Promise is
the first element of the queue:

If the async generator was suspended by yield, it is resumed and

continues to run. The current Promise is later settled via
AsyncGeneratorResolve() or AsyncGeneratorReject().
If the generator is already completed, this operation calls
AsyncGeneratorResolve() and AsyncGeneratorReject() itself,
meaning that all queued pending Promises will eventually be
settled.

6.2 Async-from-Sync Iterator Objects

To get an async iterator from an object iterable, you call

GetIterator(iterable, async) (async is a symbol). If iterable doesn’t have
a method [Symbol.asyncIterator](), GetIterator() retrieves a sync iterator
via method iterable[Symbol.iterator]() and converts it to an async
iterator via CreateAsyncFromSyncIterator().

6.3 The for-await-of loop

for-await-of works almost exactly like for-of, but there is an await

whenever the contents of an IteratorResult are accessed. You can see that
by looking at Sect. “Runtime Semantics: ForIn/OfBodyEvaluation”. Notably,
iterators are closed similarly, via IteratorClose(), towards the end of this
section.

7 Alternatives to async iteration

Let’s look at two alternatives to async iteration for processing async data.
7.1 Alternative 1: Communicating Sequential Processes
(CSP)

The following code demonstrates the CSP library js-csp:

var csp = require('js-csp');

function* player(name, table) {

while (true) {
var ball = yield csp.take(table); // dequeue
if (ball === csp.CLOSED) {
console.log(name + ": table's gone");
return;
}
ball.hits += 1;
console.log(name + " " + ball.hits);
yield csp.timeout(100); // wait
yield csp.put(table, ball); // enqueue
}
}

csp.go(function* () {
var table = csp.chan(); // (A)

csp.go(player, ["ping", table]); // (B)

csp.go(player, ["pong", table]); // (C)

yield csp.put(table, {hits: 0}); // enqueue

yield csp.timeout(1000); // wait
table.close();
});

player defines a “process” that is instantiated twice (in line (B) and in line
(C), via csp.go()). The processes are connected via the “channel” table,
which is created in line (A) and passed to player via its second parameter.
A channel is basically a queue.

How does CSP compare to async iteration?

The coding style is also synchronous.

 Channels feels like a good abstraction for producing and consuming
async data.
Making the connections between processes explicit, as channels,
means that you can configure how they work (how much is buffered,
when to block, etc.).
The abstraction “channel” works for many use cases: communication
with and between web workers, distributed programming, etc.

7.2 Alternative 2: Reactive Programming

The following code demonstrates Reactive Programming via the JavaScript

library RxJS:

const button = document.querySelector('button');

Rx.Observable.fromEvent(button, 'click') // (A)
.throttle(1000) // at most one event per second
.scan(count => count + 1, 0)
.subscribe(count => console.log(`Clicked ${count} times`));

In line (A), we create a stream of click events via fromEvent(). These events
are then filtered so that there is at most one event per second. Every time
there is an event, scan() counts how many events there have been, so far.
In the last line, we log all counts.

How does Reactive Programming compare to async iteration?

The coding style is not as familiar, but there are similarities to

Promises.
On the other hand, chaining operations (such as throttle()) works
well for many push-based data sources (DOM events, server-sent
events, etc.).
Async iteration is for pull streams and single consumers. Reactive
programming is for push streams and potentially multiple consumers.
The former is better suited for I/O and can handle backpressure.

There is an ECMAScript proposal for Reactive Programming, called

“Observable” (by Jafar Husain).

8 Is async iteration worth it?

Now that I’ve used asynchronous iteration a little, I’ve come to a few
conclusions. These conclusions are evolving, so let me know if you disagree
with anything.

Promises have become the primitive building block for everything

async in JavaScript. And it’s a joy to see how everything is constantly
improving: more and more APIs are using Promises, stack traces are
getting better, performance is increasing, using them via async
functions is great, etc.

We need some kind of support for asynchronous sequences of data. It

wouldn’t necessarily have to be a language mechanism; it could just
be part of the standard library. At the moment, the situation is similar
to one-time async data before Promises: various patterns exist, but
there is no clear standard and interoperability.

Async iteration brings with it considerable additional cognitive load:

There are now normal functions, generator functions, async

functions and async generator functions. And each kind of
function exists as declaration, expression and method. Knowing
what to use when is becoming more complicated.
Async iteration combines iteration with Promises. Individually,
each of the two patterns takes a while to fully figure out
(especially if you include generators under iteration). Combining
them significantly increases the learning curve.

Operations are missing: Sync iterables can be converted to Arrays via

the spread operator and accessed via Array destructuring. There are
no equivalent operations for async iterables.

Converting legacy APIs to async iteration isn’t easy. A queue that is

asynchronously iterable helps, but the pieces don’t fit together as
neatly as I would like. In comparison, going from callbacks to
Promises is quite elegant.

9 Further reading
“Streams API FAQ” by Domenic Denicola (explains how streams and
asynchronous iteration are related; and more)
“Why Async Iterators Matter” (slides by Benjamin Gruenbaum)

Background:

Iterables and iterators (chapter on sync iteration in “Exploring ES6”)

 Generators (chapter on sync generators in “Exploring ES6”)
ES proposal: async functions (blog post)

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Join the discussion…

Marcelo Lazaroni −
6 years ago
Hmm.. This really doesn't look necessary at all. It seems like a needless addition
to the language trying to provide new tools to solve a problem that can already
be solved with our current tools. It will be a shame if JavaScript goes down the
path of bloating the language.
6△ ▽ Reply
Benjamin Strauß −
6 years ago

"We need some kind of support for asynchronous sequences of data (which are
different from streams!). That much is obvious."

But why do we need 3 separate APIs for basically the same effect
(AsyncIterator/Observable/Stream)? There is no reason to introduce all of these.

The only argument I know of is that they have different life cycles and different
number of subscribers. But that argument goes away if you look at how this is
implemented in Dart.

https://www.dartlang.org/ar...

Both of these flavors still do exist (Single-Subscription vs. Broadcast Streams),

but they are implemented inside the same API. Everything there is unified on
Stream<t>: ui events, async generators, low level io stuff, etc.

There was a talk about exactly that, two years ago at JSConf:

https://youtu be/ vPFP 2Mkl

https://youtu.be/-vPFP-2Mkl...

What I don't understand is why the people at tc39/whatwg don't acknowledge

that clean solutions to these problems already exist.
5△ ▽ Reply
Axel Rauschmayer > Benjamin Strauß −
6 years ago edited
Yes, one of my conclusions was: we may not need async iterables; CSP or RP
may be a better alternative. Both are complementary, because they excel at
different things. If I had to pick one of them, I’d choose CSP, which feels more
universal (subjectively, I can’t really back that up with proof).

Thanks for the link to the talk, I’ll take a look. Until now, my impression was
that streams (as in streams of bytes or characters) catered for different use
cases, but I may be wrong.

[I’ve edited the post slightly in response to your comment, hopefully making
it clearer what I mean.]
1△ ▽ Reply
Benjamin Strauß > Axel Rauschmayer −
6 years ago edited

The whatwg Stream proposal is indeed intended for low level streams. My
point is if you look at it fundamentally, all of these separate tc39/whatwg
proposals (AsyncIterator/Stream/Observable) basically do the same thing:
iterate asynchronously over a collection of data.

The fact that one flavor of that collection are UI events which have no
defined lifecycle and 1-n consumers (Observable) and the other kind is a
low level bytestream with a well defined lifecycle and a single consumer
(Stream), shouldn't really make a difference API wise. It should be an
implementation detail of a higher API, just like Streams in Dart which
unify all of that (that Dart article explains it really well, I basically just
repeat what's written there :) ).

What would happens if you would like to use all your great higher order
functions on these 3 APIs. Do all have map/filter/reduce? Can I return all of
them from async generator functions (only AsyncIterator at the moment?)?
What if I have my own higher order function, are all 3 compatible with it?

I think a single class with a single set of functions that generalises all
flavors, would be a win for everyone. But I think it might be too late for
that now, given how far these proposals are in the process. :(
△ ▽ Reply

Stephen Cleary > Benjamin Strauß −

6 years ago edited
I view the difference between Rx and async iterators as the difference
 between a "push" and "pull" model. I can totally see a library building on
async iterators, and then you'd have a very Rx/Dart-style API over both
observables and async iterators. The Rx team has already done this in the
.NET world with Ix.Async, though .NET has no languages capable of nicely
consuming them yet (i.e., for-await-of).

The "async pull" model is nice to have when you are doing progressive
downloads (like paging) from an expensive/server-limited resource, so you
want to avoid requests unless you *know* you need them.
1△ ▽ Reply
Pijamoney Get Free Bitcoins −
6 years ago
I refuse to absorb all these bloated redundant pedantic reinventions of the
wheel that comes after ES5. The cognitive overhead is too damn high.
4△ ▽ 2 Reply
coloured_chalk > Pijamoney Get Free Bitcoins −
6 years ago
agreed, I feel stupid looking on those `async function*`'s which `await yeld*
...`. this too shall pass after some practice

BTW, `yield*` is a functor, and `asunc function*` is a monad?

1△ ▽ Reply

Domenic Denicola −
6 years ago
A few issues.

> We need some kind of support for asynchronous sequences of data (which are
different from streams!).

You seem to have missed the connection between async iterables and streams.
See https://github.com/whatwg/s.... In short, async iterables are "different" from
streams in the same sense that sync iterables are "different" from arrays. Saying
that one is redundant with the other is just a misunderstanding of the role of
abstraction in software development.

> Converting legacy APIs to async iteration isn’t easy.

That isn't really true. Async generators make it trivial.

> How does Reactive Programming compare to async iteration?

See https://github.com/whatwg/s.... In particular, reactive programming is push-

based, and as such will lose data if you are not subscribed, and does not support
backpressure.
2△ ▽ 1 Reply
Axel Rauschmayer > Domenic Denicola
 Axel Rauschmayer > Domenic Denicola −
6 years ago
“You seem to have missed the connection between async iterables and
streams.”
Ah, that’s great. I’ve updated the blog post to reflect that. My impression so far
was that streams were considered to be something completely different.

“Saying that one is redundant with the other”

That’s not what I’m saying: I’m just not sure that asynchronous iteration and
asynchronous iterators are the best tools for handling streamed async data.
I’m happy to be convinced otherwise! CSP seems simpler: no need for async
generators and channels are part of the abstraction, giving you control over
whether or not to block on (the analog to) next(). Wouldn’t CSP be enough
(with streams as one kind of channel)?

“Saying […] is just a misunderstanding of the role of abstraction in software

development”
That feels like an insult to me.

“That isn't really true. Async generators make [converting legacy APIs to
async iteration] trivial.”
I’m basing my assertion on the following code – I couldn’t implement
readFile() as an async generator and I needed to implement an async queue.
https://github.com/rauschma...

Thanks for the link to “How do readable streams relate to observables or

EventTarget?”. Benjamin Gruenbaum’s slides are helpful, too:
https://docs.google.com/pre...

△ ▽ Reply
John Johnson > Axel Rauschmayer −
5 years ago edited
I just made an example of your readfile() method with an async generator
here https://github.com/johnsonj.... It's based off Benjamin Gruenbaum's
idea of the once function for mixing promises and event emitter.
1△ ▽ 1 Reply

Benjamin Gruenbaum −
6 years ago

Here is a talk I gave about it a while ago that demonstrates how to easily build
the Rx code in "example #2" in async iterators https://docs.google.com/pre... - I
don't think the two proposal compete but rather complement each other.
1△ ▽ Reply
Axel Rauschmayer > Benjamin Gruenbaum −
6 years ago
Very useful, thanks!
1△ ▽ Reply
 danvdk −
6 years ago edited

What's the performance of readLines and for-await-of?

It's always frustrated me that node doesn't have any easy equivalent of Python's

import csv
for line in csv.reader(open('file.csv')):
# ...

What's more, those three lines of Python tend to be significantly faster than
anything build with node streams. A fast, expressive way to read files line-by-
line without loading them into memory all at once would go a long way towards
letting me replace Python scripts with node ones.
1△ ▽ Reply
Tahor Sui Juris −
3 years ago

Hello,

How would I set/define the const files?

const searchkeywords = readKeyWords('./datain/testdata.csv','utf-8'); //

database

function readKeyWords(path) {
return fs.readFileSync(path, 'utf-8')
.split('\n');
}

async function printFiles () {

const files = await getFilePaths();

for (const file of files) {

const contents = await fs.readFile(file, 'utf8');
console.log(contents);
}
}

△ ▽ Reply
This comment was deleted. −
Avatar
Axel Rauschmayer > Guest −
5 years ago

I meant: it cannot deliver the data asynchronously, because it only has a

synchronous “channel”. But it’s ambiguous, I rephrased it. Thanks!

△ ▽ Reply

b
 vmb −
5 years ago

Shipped just now in V8 6.3: https://bugs.chromium.org/p...

△ ▽ Reply
avi tshuva −
6 years ago

i certainly agree we need it. i had to emulate it just recently, where i developed a
semantic-database layer (over MongoDB) because i wanted to be able to iterate
comfortably over a query results (each result is, of course, a "promised" result).
It would have been more elegant had the language helped a little more (i used
typescript btw).

△ ▽ Reply
Andrew Shaw Care −
6 years ago
I created a toy project to tackle this same problem a while ago:
https://github.com/andrewsh...

△ ▽ Reply

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