How to convert an async function to promise in javascript

Why Would You Ever Need to Convert an Async Function to a Promise?

Picture this: you’re working on a complex JavaScript project with multiple APIs, third-party libraries, and custom modules. Somewhere in the chaos, you encounter a library that only works with traditional Promises, but your codebase is built around modern async/await syntax. You’re stuck trying to bridge the gap between these two paradigms. What do you do?

This is where converting an async function to a Promise comes in handy. While async functions are essentially syntactic sugar over Promises, there are scenarios where you need explicit control over the Promise lifecycle. For example:

  • Interfacing with libraries or frameworks that don’t support async/await.
  • Creating custom wrappers for async functions to add retries, timeouts, or logging.
  • Debugging or instrumenting asynchronous code with more granular control.

In this article, we’ll explore how to convert an async function to a Promise, why you might need to do it, and how to avoid common pitfalls. By the end, you’ll have a deeper understanding of both async functions and Promises, along with practical techniques to make your code more robust.

Understanding Async Functions and Promises

Before diving into the conversion process, let’s clarify what async functions and Promises are and how they relate to each other.

Async Functions

An async function is a special type of function in JavaScript that always returns a Promise. It allows you to write asynchronous code that looks and behaves like synchronous code, thanks to the await keyword. Here’s a simple example:

// An async function that fetches data from an API
async function fetchData() {
  const response = await fetch('https://example.com/data.json');
  const data = await response.json();
  return data;
}

// Calling the async function
fetchData().then(data => console.log(data)).catch(err => console.error(err));

In this example, fetchData is an async function that uses await to pause execution until the fetch and response.json() Promises are resolved. The function returns a Promise that resolves with the parsed JSON data.

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