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Javascript: how to create an infinite-loop of promises?

I want to write in Javascript the following pseudo-code:

function asyncOperation() {
   return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
      ....
   }
}

while (true) { 
    result = asyncOperation()
    if result is good then break the loop;
    else loop again
}

I’ll explain it in words: asyncOperation uses a Promise, for example an AJAX call. I want that if the promise is rejected, then asyncOperation will be invoked again. Do you know how it can be done in Javascript?

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Answer

If you’re going to use a loop, then you will have to use await because otherwise, your loop will just run forever and never give the asynchronous operation any cycles to actually process its completion:

while (true) { 
    result = await asyncOperation()
    if (good result) {
         break;
    }
}

This, of course, needs to be inside a function declared as async.


Before await, the usual way to do this would be with a local function and a recursive-looking structure (that by the way does not have any stack build-up from recursion because of the async operation):

function run() {
    return asyncOperation().then(result => {
        if (good result) {
            return result;
        } else {
            // try again
            return run();
        }
    });
}

run().then(result => {
   console.log(result);
}).catch(err => {
   console.log(err);
});

And, typically you would insert some small delay before calling the asyncOperation() again in order to avoid hammering the target server. And, you would have either a timeout or a max number of retries to avoid a situation where this loop runs forever.

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