Call JavaScript class method synchronously

Question

I'm building a package with JavaScript which has two functions: init and sendData.

class Client {
   init() {
     return axios.post(this.baseUrl).then((response) => {
       this.token = response.data.token
     })
   }

   sendData() {
     return axios.post(this.baseUrl, {token: this.token})
   }
}

The init method needs to be called before the sendData method as this returns a token. Is there a way to wait for the init method to be called before calling the sendData method?

Answer 1

Do you need the consumer of your API to do this?

// within an async function
const client = new Client();
await client.init();
await client.sendDate();

// or anywhere just using promises
const client = new Client();
client.init().then(() => client.sendDate());

or the API itself?

// definition
class Client {
   async init() {
     const response = await axios.post(this.baseUrl);
     this.token = response.data.token;
   }

   async sendData() {
     await this.init(); // call init before sending data
     return axios.post(this.baseUrl, {token: this.token})
   }
}

// usage somewhere in an async function
const client = new Client();
client.sendDate() // calls init, then sends the data

Maybe remove the redundant calls if the token doesn't change?

class Client {
   async init() {
     const response = await axios.post(this.baseUrl);
     this.token = response.data.token;
   }

   async sendData() {
     if (!this.token) { // now you'll only call init for missing token
       await this.init();
     }
     return axios.post(this.baseUrl, {token: this.token})
   }
}

// usage somewhere in an async function
const client = new Client();
await client.sendDate(); // calls init (only the first time), then sends the data

Do note that promise returning functions are inherently asynchronous so there isn't a way of obtaining their result in a synchronous manner. However, we can write the asynchronous code using async/await to make it syntactically look (almost) identical to a synchronous version.