JavaScript: execute async function one by one

Question

I have a simple "async" JS function:

function asyncFunc(i) {
    setTimeout(function () {
        console.log(i);
    }, 1000);
}

if I want to execute this asyncFunc 5 times in a for loop, i.e. log 1 - 5 per second, and totally costs 5 seconds.

1

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3

4

5

I know jQuery's when().done() can do that however if I am in a environment with NO 3rd party JS libraries, what is the simplest and elegant way to achieve this?

Actually for example I want to write a util function which accepts an array of async functions, and this util function can execute passed in functions one by one:

function execAsyncTasks([asyncTask1, asyncTask2, asyncTask3]) {
    asyncTask1();
    // Wait until asyncTask1 finished
    asyncTask2();
    // Wait until asyncTask2 finished
    asyncTask3();
    // Wait until asyncTask3 finished
}

Answer 1

You can use Async module:

https://github.com/caolan/async

async.parallel([
    function(){ ... },
    function(){ ... }
], callback);

async.series([
    function(){ ... },
    function(){ ... }
]);

Answer 2

All your tasks will have to implement some sort of callback mechanism, because that's the only way you'll ever know that an asynchronous task has been completed. Having that, you could do something like:

function executeTasks() {
    var tasks = Array.prototype.concat.apply([], arguments);
    var task = tasks.shift();
    task(function() {
        if(tasks.length > 0)
            executeTasks.apply(this, tasks);
    });
}

executeTasks(t1, t2, t3, t4);

Demo