lodash throttle function doesn't seem to be called

Question

I'm using lodash's throttle function for the first time to try and throttle the number of calls to an API, however in my attempts I can't seem to get it to trigger a call.

I have included a simplified version below:

const _ = require('lodash');

let attempts = 0;

const incrementAttempts = () => {
  console.log('incrementing attempts');
  attempts++;
  console.log("attempts now: " + attempts);
}

const throttledAttempts = () => { 
  // From my understanding, this will throttle calls to increasedAttempts to one call every 500 ms
  _.throttle(incrementAttempts(), 500); 
}

// We should make 5 attempts at the call
while(attempts < 5) {
  throttledAttempts();
}

This initially gave me the output:

incrementing attempts
attempts now: 1
TypeError: Expected a function
    at Function.throttle (/home/runner/SimilarUtterUnits/node_modules/lodash/lodash.js:10970:15)

After looking up this error I saw a suggestion to add an anonymous wrapper to the throttle function, so now my throttledAttempts looks like:

const throttledAttempts = () => { 
  _.throttle(() => incrementAttempts(), 500); 
}

However doing this... I now get NO console output whatsoever!

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

The _.throttle returns the new throttled function. Your code should be something like:

let attempts = 0;

const incrementAttempts = () => {
  console.log('incrementing attempts');
  attempts++;
  console.log("attempts now: " + attempts);
}

const throttledAttempts = _.throttle(incrementAttempts, 500);

// We should make 5 attempts at the call
while(attempts < 5) {
  throttledAttempts();
}