Callback after all asynchronous forEach callbacks are completed

Question

As the title suggests. How do I do this?

I want to call whenAllDone() after the forEach-loop has gone through each element and done some asynchronous processing.

[1, 2, 3].forEach(
  function(item, index, array, done) {
     asyncFunction(item, function itemDone() {
       console.log(item + " done");
       done();
     });
  }, function allDone() {
     console.log("All done");
     whenAllDone();
  }
);

Possible to get it to work like this? When the second argument to forEach is a callback function which runs once it went through all iterations?

Expected output:

3 done
1 done
2 done
All done!

Answer 1

Array.forEach does not provide this nicety (oh if it would) but there are several ways to accomplish what you want:

Using a simple counter

function callback () { console.log('all done'); }

var itemsProcessed = 0;

[1, 2, 3].forEach((item, index, array) => {
  asyncFunction(item, () => {
    itemsProcessed++;
    if(itemsProcessed === array.length) {
      callback();
    }
  });
});

(thanks to @vanuan and others) This approach guarantees that all items are processed before invoking the "done" callback. You need to use a counter that gets updated in the callback. Depending on the value of the index parameter does not provide the same guarantee, because the order of return of the asynchronous operations is not guaranteed.

Using ES6 Promises

(a promise library can be used for older browsers):

1. Process all requests guaranteeing synchronous execution (e.g. 1 then 2 then 3)

   function asyncFunction (item, cb) {
     setTimeout(() => {
       console.log('done with', item);
       cb();
     }, 100);
   }
   
   let requests = [1, 2, 3].reduce((promiseChain, item) => {
       return promiseChain.then(() => new Promise((resolve) => {
         asyncFunction(item, resolve);
       }));
   }, Promise.resolve());
   
   requests.then(() => console.log('done'))
   

2. Process all async requests without "synchronous" execution (2 may finish faster than 1)

   let requests = [1,2,3].map((item) => {
       return new Promise((resolve) => {
         asyncFunction(item, resolve);
       });
   })
   
   Promise.all(requests).then(() => console.log('done'));
   

Using an async library

There are other asynchronous libraries, async being the most popular, that provide mechanisms to express what you want.

Edit

---

The body of the question has been edited to remove the previously synchronous example code, so i've updated my answer to clarify. The original example used synchronous like code to model asynchronous behaviour, so the following applied:

array.forEach is synchronous and so is res.write, so you can simply put your callback after your call to foreach:

  posts.foreach(function(v, i) {
    res.write(v + ". index " + i);
  });

  res.end();

Answer 2

If you encounter asynchronous functions, and you want to make sure that before executing the code it finishes its task, we can always use the callback capability.

For example:

var ctr = 0;
posts.forEach(function(element, index, array){
    asynchronous(function(data){
         ctr++; 
         if (ctr === array.length) {
             functionAfterForEach();
         }
    })
});

Note: functionAfterForEach is the function to be executed after foreach tasks are finished. asynchronous is the asynchronous function executed inside foreach.

Answer 3

It's odd how many incorrect answers has been given to asynchronous case! It can be simply shown that checking index does not provide expected behavior:

// INCORRECT
var list = [4000, 2000];
list.forEach(function(l, index) {
    console.log(l + ' started ...');
    setTimeout(function() {
        console.log(index + ': ' + l);
    }, l);
});

output:

4000 started
2000 started
1: 2000
0: 4000

If we check for index === array.length - 1, callback will be called upon completion of first iteration, whilst first element is still pending!

To solve this problem without using external libraries such as async, I think your best bet is to save length of list and decrement if after each iteration. Since there's just one thread we're sure there no chance of race condition.

var list = [4000, 2000];
var counter = list.length;
list.forEach(function(l, index) {
    console.log(l + ' started ...');
    setTimeout(function() {
        console.log(index + ': ' + l);
        counter -= 1;
        if ( counter === 0)
            // call your callback here
    }, l);
});