SyntaxError: Unexpected token function - Async Await Nodejs

Question

Async functions are not supported by Node versions older than version 7.6.

You'll need to transpile your code (e.g. using Babel) to a version of JS that Node understands if you are using an older version.

That said, versions of Node.js which don’t support async functions are now all past End Of Life and are unsupported, so if you are using an earlier version you should very strongly consider upgrading.

Nodejs supports async/await from version 7.6.

Release post: https://v8project.blogspot.com.br/2016/10/v8-release-55.html

Node.JS does not fully support ES6 currently, so you can either use asyncawait module or transpile it using Bable.

install

npm install --save asyncawait

helloz.js

var async = require('asyncawait/async');
var await = require('asyncawait/await');

(async (function testingAsyncAwait() {
    await (console.log("Print me!"));
}))();

If you are just experimenting you can use babel-node command line tool to try out the new JavaScript features

1. Install babel-cli into your project

   $ npm install --save-dev babel-cli

2. Install the presets

   $ npm install --save-dev babel-preset-es2015 babel-preset-es2017

3. Setup your babel presets

   Create .babelrc in the project root folder with the following contents:

   { "presets": ["es2015","es2017"] }

4. Run your script with babel-node

   $ babel-node helloz.js

This is only for development and testing but that seems to be what you are doing. In the end you'll want to set up webpack (or something similar) to transpile all your code for production

• babel-node sample code : https://github.com/stujo/javascript-async-await/tree/15abac

If you want to run the code somewhere else, webpack can help and here is the simplest configuration I could work out:

• Full webpack example : https://github.com/stujo/javascript-async-await