CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptnode.jspromise
subZero
subZero

Reputation: 5186

Why does this promise silently fail?

db.collection.findOne is an async operation (MongoDB, but that doesn't really matter here), which is why I'm wrapping it in a promise here. 

var letsDoSomething = new Promise(function(resolve, reject){
    db.collection('stackoverflow').findOne({question: true}, function(err, question){
        resolve(question); // let's pretend we found a question here, and it is now resolving
    })
})

letsDoSomething.then(function(myData){ // it resolves
    console.log('foo', bar); // since 'bar' is undefined, this should fail – why doesn't it? No error messages, it goes completely silent
});

Why doesn't the debugger throw an error when I try to log bar, which simply doesn't exist? It just goes poof silent, not a word.

Expected result (in my mind):

console.log('foo', bar);
ReferenceError: bar is not defined

What am I missing?

Environment:

node -v
v0.12.4

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1689

Answers (1)

thefourtheye
thefourtheye

Reputation: 239683

It is not swallowing that error, but if a then or catch handler results in an error, then the current promise will be rejected with that error.

In your case, ReferenceError is thrown, but it rejects the promise. You can see the actual error being propagated, by attaching a catch handler, like this

new Promise(function (resolve, reject) {
    resolve(true);
  })
  .then(function (result) {
    console.log(result, bar);
  })
  .catch(function (er) {
    console.error('Inside Catch', er);
  });

Now you will see 

Inside Catch [ReferenceError: bar is not defined]

Further Reading:

  1. Why cannot I throw inside a Promise.catch handler?

Upvotes: 4

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