Idiomatic way to wait for multiple callbacks in Node.js

Update:

Now I would advise to have a look at:

• Promises

  The Promise object is used for deferred and asynchronous computations.
  A Promise represents an operation that hasn’t completed yet, but is
  expected in the future.

  A popular promises library is bluebird. A would advise to have a look at why promises.

  You should use promises to turn this:

  fs.readFile("file.json", function (err, val) {
      if (err) {
          console.error("unable to read file");
      }
      else {
          try {
              val = JSON.parse(val);
              console.log(val.success);
          }
          catch (e) {
              console.error("invalid json in file");
          }
      }
  });
  

  Into this:

  fs.readFileAsync("file.json").then(JSON.parse).then(function (val) {
      console.log(val.success);
  })
  .catch(SyntaxError, function (e) {
      console.error("invalid json in file");
  })
  .catch(function (e) {
      console.error("unable to read file");
  });
  

• generators: For example via co.

  Generator based control flow goodness for nodejs and the browser,
  using promises, letting you write non-blocking code in a nice-ish way.

  var co = require('co');
  
  co(function *(){
    // yield any promise
    var result = yield Promise.resolve(true);
  }).catch(onerror);
  
  co(function *(){
    // resolve multiple promises in parallel
    var a = Promise.resolve(1);
    var b = Promise.resolve(2);
    var c = Promise.resolve(3);
    var res = yield [a, b, c];
    console.log(res);
    // => [1, 2, 3]
  }).catch(onerror);
  
  // errors can be try/catched
  co(function *(){
    try {
      yield Promise.reject(new Error('boom'));
    } catch (err) {
      console.error(err.message); // "boom"
   }
  }).catch(onerror);
  
  function onerror(err) {
    // log any uncaught errors
    // co will not throw any errors you do not handle!!!
    // HANDLE ALL YOUR ERRORS!!!
    console.error(err.stack);
  }
  

---

If I understand correctly I think you should have a look at the very good async library. You should especially have a look at the series. Just a copy from the snippets from github page:

async.series([
    function(callback){
        // do some stuff ...
        callback(null, 'one');
    },
    function(callback){
        // do some more stuff ...
        callback(null, 'two');
    },
],
// optional callback
function(err, results){
    // results is now equal to ['one', 'two']
});


// an example using an object instead of an array
async.series({
    one: function(callback){
        setTimeout(function(){
            callback(null, 1);
        }, 200);
    },
    two: function(callback){
        setTimeout(function(){
            callback(null, 2);
        }, 100);
    },
},
function(err, results) {
    // results is now equals to: {one: 1, two: 2}
});

As a plus this library can also run in the browser.