fs.writeFile in a promise, asynchronous-synchronous stuff

Question

As of 2019...

...the correct answer is to use async/await with the native fs promises module included in node. Upgrade to Node.js 10 or 11 (already supported by major cloud providers) and do this:

const fs = require('fs').promises;

// This must run inside a function marked `async`:
const file = await fs.readFile('filename.txt', 'utf8');
await fs.writeFile('filename.txt', 'test');

Do not use third-party packages and do not write your own wrappers, that's not necessary anymore.

No longer experimental

Before Node 11.14.0, you would still get a warning that this feature is experimental, but it works just fine and it's the way to go in the future. Since 11.14.0, the feature is no longer experimental and is production-ready.

What if I prefer import instead of require?

It works, too - but only in Node.js versions where this feature is not marked as experimental.

import { promises as fs } from 'fs';

(async () => {
    await fs.writeFile('./test.txt', 'test', 'utf8');
})();

Because fs.writefile is a traditional asynchronous callback - you need to follow the promise spec and return a new promise wrapping it with a resolve and rejection handler like so:

return new Promise(function(resolve, reject) {
    fs.writeFile("<filename.type>", data, '<file-encoding>', function(err) {
        if (err) reject(err);
        else resolve(data);
    });
});

So in your code you would use it like so right after your call to .then():

 .then(function(results) {
    return new Promise(function(resolve, reject) {
            fs.writeFile(ASIN + '.json', JSON.stringify(results), function(err) {
               if (err) reject(err);
               else resolve(data);
            });
    });
  }).then(function(results) {
       console.log("results here: " + results)
  }).catch(function(err) {
       console.log("error here: " + err);
  });

say

const util = require('util')
const fs_writeFile = util.promisify(fs.writeFile)

https://nodejs.org/api/util.html#util_util_promisify_original

this is less prone to bugs than the top-voted answer

Finally, the latest node.js release v10.3.0 has natively supported fs promises.

const fsPromises = require('fs').promises; // or require('fs/promises') in v10.0.0
fsPromises.writeFile(ASIN + '.json', JSON.stringify(results))
  .then(() => {
    console.log('JSON saved');
  })
  .catch(er => {
    console.log(er);
  });

You can check the official documentation for more details. https://nodejs.org/api/fs.html#fs_fs_promises_api