How do you create custom asynchronous functions in node.js?

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NOTE: this answer was written in 2014, before the existence of async function, and before Promises gaining popularity. While the same principles apply as well, I would recommend reading on Promises before trying to get your head around how they relate to “traditional” callback-driven async functions.

To create a function that calls its callback asynchronously, you have to use some platform-provided async primitive (typically IO-related) on it – timers, reading from the filesystem, making a request etc.

For example, this function takes a callback argument, and calls it 100ms after:

function asyncFn(callback) {
  setTimeout(() => {
    callback();
  }, 100);
}

A possible reason for making a function async when it doesn’t need to be, is for API consistency. For example, suppose you have a function that makes a network request, and caches the result for later calls:

var cache = null;
function makeRequest(callback) {
  if (!cache) {
    makeAjax(result => {
      cache = result;
      callback(result);
    });
  } else {
    callback(cache);
  }
}

The problem is, this function is inconsistent: sometimes it is asynchronous, sometimes it isn’t. Suppose you have a consumer like this:

makeRequest(result => doSomethingWithResult(result));
doSomethingElse();

The doSomethingElse function may run before or after the doSomethingWithResult function, depending on whether the result was cached or not. Now, if you use an async primitive on the makeRequest function, such as process.nextTick:

var cache = null;
function makeRequest(callback) {
  if(!cache) {
    makeAjax(result => {
      cache = result;
      callback(result);
    });
  } else {
    process.nextTick(() => callback(cache));
  }
}

The call is always async, and doSomethingElse always runs before doSomethingWithResult.

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