How do I force gulp calls to run synchronously?

Question

I want the gulp calls below to run synchronously, one after the other. But they do not follow an order.

The run-sequence node module doesn't help here, as I'm not trying to run gulp tasks in series (i.e. it has syntax similar to gulp.task("mytask", ["foo", "bar", "baz"] etc.), but rather gulp "calls" in series, as you see below.

gulp.task("dostuff", function (callback) {

  gulp
    .src("...")
    .pipe(gulp.dest("...");

  gulp
    .src("...")
    .pipe(gulp.dest("...");

  gulp
    .src("...")
    .pipe(gulp.dest("...");

  callback();
});

How do I make them run one after the other?

Answer 1

You can use async as a control flow for your calls to get them in only one task, also avoiding you to get a "pyramid effect". So something like this should be good for your use-case:

var async = require('async');

gulp.task('yeah', function (cb) {
  async.series([
    function (next) {
      gulp.src('...')
        .pipe(gulp.dest('...')
        .on('end', next);
    },
    function (next) {
      gulp.src('...')
        .pipe(gulp.dest('...')
        .on('end', next);
    },
    function (next) {
      gulp.src('...')
        .pipe(gulp.dest('...')
        .on('end', next);
    }
  ], cb);
});

That will also allow you to have some error handling and target better where a problem occured.

Answer 2

Well, it's just streams so you could listen for the end event (Watch out for the pyramid of doom!)

gulp.task("dostuff", function (callback) {

  gulp
    .src("...")
    .pipe(gulp.dest("..."))
    .on('end', function () {

      gulp
        .src("...")
        .pipe(gulp.dest("..."))
        .on('end', function () {

          gulp
            .src("...")
            .pipe(gulp.dest("..."))
            .on('end', callback);

        });
    });
});

But it's probably a better pattern to split it up in multiple tasks each one with a dependency on the previous one.