Loop through asynchronous request

Question

so I have the following code to loop through a Object:

for(var x in block){
    sendTextMessage(block[x].text, sender, function(callback){
        //increment for?
    })
}

For each iteration I want to do a request (send a facebook message), only after that request has finished, I want to go through the next iteraction, this is because without any callbacks, the messages won't be sent in the right succession.

function sendTextMessage(text, sender, callback) {
    let messageData = { text:text}
    request({
        url: 'https://graph.facebook.com/v2.6/me/messages',
        qs: {access_token:token},
        method: 'POST',
        json: {
            recipient: {id:sender},
            message: messageData,
        }
    }, function(error, response, body) {
        if (response.statusCode >= 200 &&  response.statusCode < 300){
            if(callback) callback('success')
        }
    })
}

I've had this problem before and not been able to solve it, how can I, somehow do this?

If you have any questions, please ask. Thank you.

Answer 1

I ended up following @Matt Diamond advice and do a recursive function that looks like this:

function buildFlow(block, sender){
    var i = 0;
    recursive()
    /*  for(var x in block){
        sendTextMessage(block[x], block[x].type, sender)
        console.log(x)
    }*/
    function recursive(){
        if (i<Object.keys(block).length){
            sendTextMessage(block[Object.keys(block)[i]], block[Object.keys(block)[i]].type, sender, function(){
                i++
                recursive()
            })

        }else{
            i = 0
        }
    }
}

Thanks everyone who gave some help, greatly appreciated.

Answer 2

One of the ways I've solved this in the past is to use an interval timer, sort of like this:

var isSending = false;
var sendMessages = setInterval(function() {
  if(!isSending) {
    isSending = true;
    sendTextMessage(block.pop().text, sender, function(){
      if(block.length) {
       isSending = false;
      } else {
        clearInterval(sendMessages);
        //Done
      }
    })
  }
})

function sendTextMessage(text, sender, callback) {
    let messageData = { text:text}
    request({
        url: 'https://graph.facebook.com/v2.6/me/messages',
        qs: {access_token:token},
        method: 'POST',
        json: {
            recipient: {id:sender},
            message: messageData,
        }
    }, function(error, response, body) {
        if (response.statusCode >= 200 &&  response.statusCode < 300){
            if(callback) callback('success')
        }
    })
}

Answer 3

You can use async module which will be really helpful to you for making requests one by one. Below is a sample code from async official docs which is fairly intuitive to understand.

  function asyncForEach (arr, iterator, callback) {
    queue = arr.slice(0)
        // create a recursive iterator
    function next (err) {
      if (err) return callback(err)

            // if the queue is empty, call the callback with no error
      if (queue.length === 0) return callback(null)

            // call the callback with our task
            // we pass `next` here so the task can let us know when to move on to the next task
      iterator(queue.shift(), next)
    }

        // start the loop;
    next()
  }

function sampleAsync (param, done) {
// put a callback when function is done its work 
}

  asyncForEach(result, function (param, done) { // result is the array you pass as iterator
    sampleAsync(param, function (message) {
      console.log(message)
      done()
    })
  }, function () {
    console.log('callback')
    callback(SOME_RESULT)
  })

}