How to use recursion within a ES6 promise?

Question

I want to check if a post with a newly set id already exists using an axios get request. (I am doing this on the front-end because I don't control the back-end)

However I am not sure how to combine the recursion I want for when a posts with that id already exists and the promise it is in.

This is what I got so far:

import axios from 'axios';
import uuidv4 from 'uuid/v4';

export function newPost(post) {
  return (dispatch) => {
    getUniqueId.then((id) => {
      // post new post with unique id
      // dispatch({ type: NEW_POST_FULFILLED, payload: err });
    }).catch((err) => {
      dispatch({ type: NEW_POST_FAILED, payload: err });
    })
  }
}

const getUniqueId = new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
  checkUniqueId(resolve, reject, uuidv4())
});

const checkUniqueId = (resolve, reject, id) => {
  axios
    .get(`${api}/posts/${id}`, { headers })
    .then((resp) => checkUniqueId(resolve, reject, uuidv4()))
    .catch((err) => {
      if(err.response.status === 500) {
        resolve(id);
      } else {
        reject(err);
      }
    });
}

Answer 1

A few issues:

• getUniqueId should be a function, since you would want to get a new id every time newPost is called.

• You should not use the promise constructor antipattern: don't create a new promise, but instead just return the promise itself, or throw when you need to reject.

Here is the corrected code:

export function newPost(post) {
    return (dispatch) => {
        // Call as function!
        getUniqueId().then((id) => {
            // post new post with unique id
            // dispatch({ type: NEW_POST_FULFILLED, payload: err });
        }).catch((err) => {
            dispatch({ type: NEW_POST_FAILED, payload: err });
        })
    }
}

// Define as function, and just return the promise from `checkUniqueId`
const getUniqueId = _ => checkUniqueId(uuidv4());

const checkUniqueId = (id) => {
    // return the promise!
    return axios
        .get(`${api}/posts/${id}`, { headers })
        .then((resp) => checkUniqueId(uuidv4()))
        .catch((err) => {
            if (err.response.status === 500) {
                return id;
            } else {
                throw err; // throw the error to cascade it through the chain
            }
        });
}