Make Cordova wait for async hook to finish

Question

In my Cordova project, I have a hook which does RequireJS optimization (r.js) on after_prepare. That optimization is inherently asynchronous, so my hook code returns before all optimization is fully finished.

For example, this causes issues when running cordova run browser: On the first page load, optimization has not finished yet and the site looks broken.

Is there a way to make the Cordovoa build process to block until a certain hook fires a callback? Or can the optimizer be run in a blocking/sync way?

An alternative I could think of is using a different process for optimization and busy-wait in the main for it to finish, but that looks like an overkill and bad practice to me.

Answer 1

You can use the built-in promise module to block Cordova from proceeding until the hook has resolved. Something along these lines:

#!/usr/bin/env node

var deferral;

function doSomethingAsync(){
    somethingAync
        .success(function(){
            deferral.resolve();
        })
        .fail(function(err){
            deferral.reject(err);
        });
}

module.exports = function(ctx) {
    deferral = ctx.requireCordovaModule('q').defer();
    doSomethingAsync();
    return deferral.promise;
};