Chaining an arbitrary number of promises in Q

Question

I want to send an HTTP request N times. I want to eventually have information about the results of each of those requests.

Running the request function once works great. Here's the HTTP request function using Q.defer():

function runRequest() {
    var deferred = Q.defer(),
        start = (new Date).getTime(),
        req = HTTP.request(options, function(res) {
            var end = (new Date).getTime(),
            requestDetails = {
                reqStatus: res.statusCode,
                reqStart: start,
                reqEnd: end,
                duration: end - start
            }
            deferred.resolve(requestDetails);
        });
    req.on('error', function(e) {
        deferred.reject(e.message);
    });
    req.end();

    return deferred.promise;
}

If I do this, I get back the data I expect:

runRequest().then(function(requestDetails) {
    console.log('STATUS: ' + requestDetails.reqStatus);
    console.log('Duration: ' + requestDetails.duration);
    console.log('Start: ' + requestDetails.reqStart);
    console.log('End: ' + requestDetails.reqEnd);

}, function(error) {
    console.log('Problem with request: ' + error);
})
.done();

To iterate, I tried to fit that into a for loop:

function iterateRequests() {
    var deferred = Q.defer();
    var reqResults = [];
    for (var iteration = 0; iteration < requests; iteration++) {
        runRequest()
        .then(function(requestDetails) {
            console.log('STATUS: ' + requestDetails.reqStatus);
            reqResults.push(requestDetails);
        }, function(error) {
            console.log('Problem with request: ' + error);
        });
    }
    deferred.resolve(reqResults);
    return deferred.promise;
}

Then I call it like this:

iterateRequests()
.then(function(results) {
    console.log(results);
    console.log("in the success callback after iterateRequests");
}, function() {
    console.log("in the failure callback after iterateRequests");
})
.done();

I end up getting into the success callback (i.e., it logs "in the success callback after iterateRequests"). However, the console.log(results) prints before I get the logs from runRequest().then() callback and it's an empty array.

Any ideas or some guidance on chaining/iterating over promise-return functions?

Thanks!

Update Follow up question in response to @abject_error's answer:

Checked out Q.all. Definitely looks like what I need. And it's much simpler that what I was working with. I made a simple test case to help me figure out how it works:

var Q = require("q");

function returner(number) {
    var deferred = Q.defer();

    deferred.resolve(number);
    return deferred.promise;
}

function parent() {
    return Q.all([
        returner(1),
        returner(2),
        returner(4)
    ]);
}


parent()
.then(function(promises) {
    // works - promises gives me [1, 2, 4]
    console.log(promises);
});

So I see how I can use it if I know beforehand the number of times I need to call it (and which functions I'm going to call). Any tips on how to get a dynamic number of calls to returner (in this example) or runRequest (in my original example) in the array?

Answer 1

This answers the update part of the question:

var buildCalls = function() {

  var calls = [];
  for (var i in stories) {

    calls.push(myFunc(i));
  }
  return calls;
}

return Q.all(buildCalls());

Answer 2

Q has other functions to aid in Promise based workflows. The method you need to use is Q#all. If you have an array of promises, and you want to call a function when all of them have successfully fulfilled, you do

Q.all(array_of_promises).then(success_callback, failure_callback);

After all the request promises are fulfilled, success_callback is called. If any of them rejects, the failure_callback is called immediately.