I spent too much time trying to figure out why my express.js controller did not respond to a simple query, and figured out that runtime errors fired from a Mongoose-promise callback were silently interrupting the callback process.
Here is a simplified version of my code:
server.get('/api/test', function (req, res, next) {
User.find({}).exec().then(function success(users){
console.log('SUCCESS');
typo[0] = 1; // throws a runtime error
res.json(users);
}, function error(err){
console.log('ERROR');
res.json({error: err});
});
});
This results in SUCCESS
showing up in my console, but nothing happens then. No response is given to the user, the error caused by my typo is not appearing in my console, and the error callback is not called either.
I am aware that one should not throw exceptions from a callback function, but in that case, this was just a typo, and it would make sense to me to be warned (e.g. a stack trace in my standard output) whenever one makes this kind of mistake. (we're humans, after all...)
In your opinion, what's the best way to get feedback whenever this kind of mistakes are made in promise callbacks?
You don't handle a Promise with a callback: mongoose call you're callback if provided, otherwise it return the Promise.
A promise is basically an advancement of callbacks in Node. In other words, a promise is a JavaScript object which is used to handle all the asynchronous data operations. While developing an application you may encounter that you are using a lot of nested callback functions.
Consuming a promise For example, when we request data from a server via an API that returns a promise, we utilize the then() and catch() methods to consume whatever data is delivered. In the above code, the then() method is executed when the promise is fulfilled by the resolve() callback.
A callback is a function which is called when a task is completed, thus helps in preventing any kind of blocking and a callback function allows other code to run in the meantime. Callback is called when task get completed and is asynchronous equivalent for a function.
This is Mongoose's fault for using a bad promise implementation. Promises are throw-safe so exceptions are caught (so they can be later handled by future code) - the future code never comes and Mongoose never reports that it did not. Good promise implementations do not suffer from this issue.
Your options are two:
Use a library like Bluebird:
var Promise = require("bluebird");
var mongoose = Promise.promisifyAll(require("mongoose"));
User.findAsync({}).then(function(data){
JSON.prase("dsa"); // not a silent failure, will show up, easy debugging
});
This has the advantage of being faster than mongoose promises so there is no performance penalty. Alternatively, if you're super conservative and don't want the performance and API gains of bluebird - you can use native promises:
// Promise is the native promise
Promise.resolve(User.find({}).exec()).then(function(data){
JSON.prase("dsa");
});
And then, assuming you're running a modern variant of nodejs (read: io.js v 1.4.1 or upper), you can subscribe to promise rejections:
process.on("unhandledRejection", function(p, why){
console.log("FOUND ERROR!!!!", p , why);
});
So exceptions are not silently suppressed.
The exec()
has two promises
.then(function)
.then(null , function)
try this, I think it will help
server.get('/api/test', function(req, res, next) {
User.find({}).exec()
.then(function success(users) {
console.log('SUCCESS');
typo[0] = 1; // throws a runtime error
res.json(users);
})
.then(null, function error(err) {
console.log('ERROR');
res.json({
error: err
});
});
});
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