Async/Await

JavaScript has introduced async/await syntax that allows us to write asynchronous code that looks and behaves more like synchronous code.

What is Async/Await?

Async/Await is a syntactic sugar on top of Promises, which makes asynchronous code look and behave a little more like synchronous code. This syntactic sugar leads to asynchronous, non-blocking code that appears a lot like synchronous, blocking code. This makes the code cleaner and easier to understand.

Async/Await is built on top of Promises. An async function always returns a Promise, and the resolved value of this Promise will be whatever you return from the function. The keyword await makes JavaScript wait until that Promise settles and returns its result.

How to use Async/Await?

Remember the previous example in promises, this is how it's written in async/await

async function processData() {
  try {
    const data = await getData('data.txt');
    const parsedData = parseData(data);
    await saveData('parsedData.txt', parsedData);
    console.log('Data saved successfully!');
  } catch (err) {
    console.log('Error:', err);
  }
}

processData();

In the example above, the async keyword in front of the function means that the function will always return a Promise. Inside an async function, you can use the await keyword before a Promise to wait for its resolution.

Why use Async/Await?

There are several reasons why you might want to use async/await:

1. Readability: Async/Await makes asynchronous code look like it's synchronous. This makes the code easier to read and understand.
2. Error handling: With async/await, you can use try/catch blocks to handle errors, which is a more familiar syntax for error handling compared to Promises.
3. Less noise: Async/await requires less boilerplate compared to raw promises, which can make your code more concise and easier to maintain.