Fetch file, read contents and return contents all in one function

Question

I have been given the task of reading a file, processing the data and returning the results. As it is an async process, I run into the problem where you cannot return from a .then, and an unresolved Promise is unresolved. I am using fetch. I know this issue has been discussed a lot, apologies. Here is code. Thank you.

function myFunction () {
    async function fetchData() {      
      await fetch("./my_file.txt")
        .then((res) => res.text())
        .then((text) => {
          //I want to return text here
        })
      .catch((e) => console.error(e));
    }
    const response = fetchData();
    //I can process the data here and then return it
    //process data
    //return results
}

Answer 1

Try something like this:

async function myFunction () {
    async function fetchData() {
      try {
        let f = await fetch("./my_file.txt");
        let text = await f.text();
        return text;
      }
      catch (ex) {
        console.error(ex);
      }
    }

    const response = await fetchData();
    //I can process the data here and then return it
    //process data
    //return results
}

Answer 2

You cannot immediately return the results, that is just impossible. You can always only return a promise for them, no matter how you write it.

The easiest is to just return the chained promise:

function myFunction () {
  return fetch("./my_file.txt")
    .then(res => res.text())
    .then(text => {
      // I can process the data here and then return it
      // process data
      // return results
    });
}

You can also use async/await instead of .then():

async function myFunction() {
  const res = await fetch("./my_file.txt");
  const text = await res.text();
  // I can process the data here and then return it
  // process data
  // return results
}

Notice I've removed the .catch(e => console.error(e)) part from both. That should be done only by the caller of myFunction(). Or if you don't return a result anywhere, e.g.

function myFunction () {
  fetch("./my_file.txt") /*
^^ no return */
    .then(res => res.text())
    .then(text => {
      // I can process the data here
      // process data
      // output results
      // no return
    })
    .catch(e => {
      // output error
      console.error(e);
    });
}