How do I handle errors with promises?

Question

As a node programmer. I'm used to use "nodebacks" for handling errors in my code:

myFn(param, function(err, data) {
    if (err){
        //error handling logic
     }
     else {
        // business logic
    }
});

When writing that function, I can do something like:

var myFn = function(param, callback){
    var calc = doSomeCalculation(param);
    if(calc === null) { // or some other way to detect error
        callback(new Error("error with calculation"), null);
    }
    ...
    someAsyncOp(calcN,function(err, finalResult){
        if(err) return callback(err, null);
        callback(null, finalResult); // the error is null to signal no error
    });

};

How would I do this sort of error handling with promises?

Answer 1

Rule of Thumb

Whenever you have a doubt about how to do something with promises - think about the synchronous version.

try{
   var result = myFn(param);
   // business logic with result
} catch(e) {
    //error handling logic
}

This, at least to me looks a lot cleaner than a callback with a first parameter that is sometimes null.

The promises way is almost always very similar to the synchronous version of the problem:

myFn(param).then(function(result){
    // business logic with result
}).catch(function(e){
    //error handling logic
});

Where myFn would look something like when working with callbacks:

var myFn = function(param){
    return new Promise(function(resolve, reject){
        var calc = doSomeCalculation(param);
        if(calc === null) { // or some other way to detect error
            reject(new Error("error with calculation"), null);
        }
        someAsyncOp(calcN,function(err, finalResult){
            if(err) reject(err);
            resolve(finalResult);
        })
    });
};

Working with callbacks/nodebacks

This is only something you should have to do when working with callbacks, when working with promises it is a lot simpler, and you can do:

var myFn = function(param){
    var calc = doSomeCalculation(param);
    ...
    return someAsyncOp(calcN); // returning a promise.
}

Moreover, when working inside promise chains, you get throw safety:

myFn(param).then(function(calcN){
   // here, you throw to raise an error and return to resolve
   // new Promise should be used only when starting a chain.
}).catch(function(err){
    // handle error
}).then(function(){
   // ready to go again, we're out of the catch
});

---

Note, some libraries like Bluebird , RSVP and Q offer syntactic sugar and automatic promisification of methods so you rarely have to use new Promise yourself.

Also, consider reading this and that to learn more about promise error handling.

Answer 2

If you're using the async/await syntax, you can just use the regular try-catch syntax for error handling.

// your promise function
const myFn = function(param){
  return new Promise(function(resolve, reject){
      if (someLogic()) {
          resolve(someValue);
      } else {
          reject('failure reason');
      }
  });
}

// Define the parent function as an async function
async function outerFn(param) {
    try {
        // Wait for the promise to complete using await
        const result = await myFn(param)
        // business logic with result
    } catch (e) {
        //error handling logic
    }
}