when-traverse

Asynchronously traverse tree of mixed promises and values

Why

Consider this function as Promise.map + Promise.all for trees.

Often enough, we have tree structures, and when we want to transform them asynchronously, we have no other options but use sync variants of functions or write ugly hacks by collecting arrays of inner promises, handling them with Promise.all, collecting new promises (if there are), waiting for them with Promise.all again and do a lot of other silly stuff.

This function allows you to wait for tree of mixed promises and simple values, replace some nodes with asynchronous content, remove nodes depending on asynchronous conditions etc.

It handles each node as soon as it becomes available for processing, thus resulting in low overall latency.

Dependencies

Function assumes that DOM API compliant Promise exists in global namespace (true for latest versions of Chrome and Firefox).

If it's not, for AMD and Node.js polyfill will be loaded and used.

Install

Use with AMD, Node.js or simple <script src>.

Usage

Let's assume you have following asynchronous tree:

// delayed promise helper (for example only)
function delay(timeout, value) {
  return new Promise(function (resolve) {
    setTimeout(function () {
      resolve(value);
    }, timeout);
  });
}

// sample tree with nested simple and promised nodes
var tree = {
  a: 1,
  b: delay(1000, {
    'b1': delay(2000, 2),
    'b2': delay(3000, 3)
  }),
  c: delay(4000, 4),
  d: {
    shouldNotGoHere: delay(5000, 5)
  }
};

Then you can process it as follows:

whenTraverse(tree, {
  enter: function enter(node, key, parentNode) {
    // is called when node object itself is resolved but didn't enter subtree yet
  },
  leave: function leave(node, key, parentNode) {
    // is called when node with all the children are resolved and subtree is processed
  }
}).then(function (tree) {
  // got resolved tree here
});

or

// custom visit() function, you can process node and call this.into(node)
whenTraverse(tree, function visit(node, key, parentNode) {
  // process each node here
  return this.into(node); // and recursively visit children if needed
}).then(function (tree) {
  // got resolved tree here
});

or

// no changes, only waiting for all the promises in tree
whenTraverse(tree).then(function (tree) {
  // got resolved tree here
});

From both enter and leave you can return either:

1. nothing (so this node object will be left intouched);
2. new node to replace old one with;
3. whenTraverse.SKIP to skip further processing of this node and children (useful in enter when you don't want to wait for children transformations nor get this node in leave);
4. whenTraverse.REMOVE to remove this node in parent;
5. Promise of anything listed above.

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Check out test.js for more code.

License

MIT © Ingvar Stepanyan