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promise.lua

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Documentation

Promise.lua is a Promises/A+ library written in Lua, against the v1.1 Promises spec.

Promises represent the result of an operation which will complete in the future. They can be passed around, chained onto, and can help to flatten out deeply nested callback code, and simplify error handling to some degree.

There are many, and much better, introductions to promise patterns.

Feel free to send a pull request with improved documentation, and/or references.

Installation

Add the promise.lua file to your application, and require it.

local Promise = require('promise')

Promises are resolved asynchronously, and require either a callback akin to javascript's setTimeout, or a periodic call to Promise.update(). This can be accomplished in a couple of ways.

When using an event loop, like lua-ev, you can set Promise.async to a function which will schedule a callback for a later time.

Promise.async = function(callback)
  my_ev_loop.create_timer(0, callback)
end

More simply, with an existing game loop, you can call Promise.update() periodically:

function love.update(dt)
  Promise.update()
  -- ...
end

Examples

local Promise = require('promise')

local promise = Promise.new()

promise:next(function(result)
  print('promise resolved', result)
end, function(reason)
  print('promise was rejected', reason)
end)

Promises may be chained repeatedly.

local promise = Promise.new()

promise:next(function(result)
  print('result1')
end)

local promise2 = promise:next(function(result)
  print('result2')
end)

promise2:next(function(result)
  print('I only run after promise2 resolves')
end)
local memoizedPromise
local fetchJson = function()
  if not memoizedPromise then
    memoizedPromise = Promise.new()
    
    fetchJsonEventually(function(json)
      promise:resolve(json)
    end)
  end
  
  return memoizedPromise
end

fetchJson:next(function(json)
  return JSON.parse(json)
end):next(function(parsed_json)
  return parsed_json.specific_value
end):next(function(specific_value)
  print('got specific value')
end):catch(function(reason)
  print('an error occurred while fetching the value', reason)
end)

If an error occurs in an onFulfilled callback, that promise will be rejected with the value of the error.

local promise = Promise.new()
promise:next(function()
  error('something bad happened!')
):catch(function(reason)
  print(reason)
end)

These errors may be caught, and handled in the callback chain:

local promise = Promise.new()

promise:next(function()
  return fetchValueWhichCausesAnError()
):catch(function(reason)
  print(reason)
  
  return myDefaultValue
end):next(function(result)
  print('"result" is either the value returned from fetchValue call, or the myDefaultValue if that threw an error')
end)

Usage

Promise.new()

Creates a new promise which may later be resolved or rejected.

local promise = Promise.new()

promise:next(callback):next(callback):catch(error_handler)

promise:next(onFulfilled, onRejected)

Returns a new promise, adding it to the current promise's chain.

onFulfilled will be called when the promise resolves. onRejected will be called when the promise is rejected. Both arguments are optional.

local promise = Promise.new()
promise:next(function(result)
  print('this callback was successful and returned', result)
end, function(reason)
  print('this promise was rejected because', reason)
end)

promise:catch(onRejected)

Alias for promise.next(nil, onRejected)

promise:resolve(value)

Resolves the promise with value

promise:reject(reason)

Rejects the promise with reason

Promise.all()

Creates a promise which resolves after all of its promises resolve, or rejects when any of its promises fail.

local promise1 = Promise.new()
local promise2 = Promise.new()
local promise3 = Promise.new()

Promise.all(promise1, promise2, promise3):next(function(results)
  local result1, result2, result3 = unpack(results)
  print('All promises have resolved')
end, function(results)
  local result1, result2, result3 = unpack(results)
  
  print('At least one promise was rejected')
end)

-- some time later
promise1:resolve(1)
promise2:resolve(2)
promise3:resolve(3)

Promise.race()

Creates a promise which resolves as soon as any of its promises resolve, or rejects when all provided promises fail.

local promise1 = Promise.new()
local promise2 = Promise.new()

Promise.race(promise1, promise2):next(function(value)
  print('The first promise to resolve returned ' .. value)
end, function(results)
  local result1, result2 = unpack(results)
  
  print('All promises were rejected')
end)

-- some time later

promise2:resolve('I resolved first!')

Differences from the Promises/A+ Spec

  • 1.2 then is a reserved word in Lua. next is used instead in this library.
  • 1.3 Valid value types

    • Promises cannot be resolved with null (nil). Lua does not distinguish between

      function()
    return nil
end

      and

      function()
    return
end

    • Lua does not have an undefined type.

  • 2.2.5 Lua method calls do not have a this equivalent. The self syntactic sugar for self is determined by method arguments.
  • 2.3.1 Lua does not have an error type. Specifications calling for TypeError will receive a string message beginning with TypeError:
  • 2.3.3.3 Lua method calls do not have a this equivalent. next will be called with the first argument of x instead.

Running the test suite

# Install luarocks
sudo apt-get install luarocks
# Install luasec (required to install specific version of busted)
sudo luarocks install luasec OPENSSL_LIBDIR=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/
# Install libev, if not already installed
sudo apt-get install libev-dev
# Install lua-ev
luarocks install lua-ev scm --server=http://luarocks.org/repositories/rocks-scm/
# Install busted
sudo luarocks install busted 1.11.1-2
# Run busted
busted spec

Related projects:

Missing one? Send a pull request!