Angular: Rewriting function to use promise - angularjs

Question

I'm using an Angular factory that retrieves data from a feed and does some data manipulation on it.
I'd like to block my app from rendering the first view until this data preparation is done. My understanding is that I need to use promises for this, and then in a controller use .then to call functions that can be run as soon as the promise resolves.
From looking at examples I'm finding it very difficult to implement a promise in my factory. Specifically I'm not sure where to put the defers and resolves. Could anyone weigh in on what would be the best way to implement one?
Here is my working factory without promise:
angular.module('MyApp.DataHandler', []) // So Modular, much name
.factory('DataHandler', function ($rootScope, $state, StorageHandler) {
var obj = {
InitData : function() {
StorageHandler.defaultConfig = {clientName:'test_feed'};
StorageHandler.prepData = function(data) {
var i = 0;
var maps = StorageHandler.dataMap;
i = data.line_up.length;
while(i--) {
// Do loads of string manipulations here
}
return data;
}
// Check for localdata
if(typeof StorageHandler.handle('localdata.favorites') == 'undefined') {
StorageHandler.handle('localdata.favorites',[]);
}
},
};
return obj;
});
Here's what I tried from looking at examples:
angular.module('MyApp.DataHandler', []) // So Modular, much name
.factory('DataHandler', function ($rootScope, $q, $state, StorageHandler) {
var obj = {
InitData : function() {
var d = $q.defer(); // Set defer
StorageHandler.defaultConfig = {clientName:'test_feed'};
StorageHandler.prepData = function(data) {
var i = 0;
var maps = StorageHandler.dataMap;
i = data.line_up.length;
while(i--) {
// Do loads of string manipulations here
}
return data;
}
// Check for localdata
if(typeof StorageHandler.handle('localdata.favorites') == 'undefined') {
StorageHandler.handle('localdata.favorites',[]);
}
return d.promise; // Return promise
},
};
return obj;
});
But nothing is shown in console when I use this in my controller:
DataHandler.InitData()
.then(function () {
// Successful
console.log('success');
},
function () {
// failure
console.log('failure');
})
.then(function () {
// Like a Finally Clause
console.log('done');
});
Any thoughts?

Answer 1

Like Florian mentioned. Your asynchronous call is not obvious in the code you've shown.
Here is the gist of what you want:
angular.module("myApp",[]).factory("myFactory",function($http,$q){
return {
//$http.get returns a promise.
//which is latched onto and chained in the controller
initData: function(){
return $http.get("myurl").then(function(response){
var data = response.data;
//Do All your things...
return data;
},function(err){
//do stuff with the error..
return $q.reject(err);
//OR throw err;
//as mentioned below returning a new rejected promise is a slight anti-pattern,
//However, a practical use case could be that it would suppress logging,
//and allow specific throw/logging control where the service is implemented (controller)
});
}
}
}).controller("myCtrl",function(myFactory,$scope){
myFactory.initData().then(function(data){
$scope.myData = data;
},function(err){
//error loudly
$scope.error = err.message
})['finally'](function(){
//done.
});
});