Angularjs promise chain when working with a paginated collection - angularjs

I'm working with a REST api that provides a paginated response for GET requests, like so:
{count: 43103
previous: null
next: http://ecoengine.berkeley.edu/api/photos/?page=2
results: [json objects....]
}
I would like to create a service that loads all the data by following the next link till next becomes null. I'm stuck on how to chain promises in this scenario and would appreciate any help on how to proceed (angular/js newbie here). My plunker with where i've gotten so far is here http://plnkr.co/edit/ySiQLvu9RNrKkQAoDmKh. You can see from the console messages that the code retrieves data from first 2 pages only. Thank you.

I tried to do chaining of promises using recursion to solve this scenario. See my fiddle here
http://plnkr.co/edit/NPh6uQ2DgVuhVxUgHB6h?p=info
Basically recursion done on loadData can get paged data. This is the implementation
var loadData = function(url) {
var deferred = $q.defer();
function loadAll() {
$http.get(url)
.then(function(d) {
debugger;
console.log('private http.get().then()');
console.log(d);
aggregateData.value.push(d.data.results);
if(d.data.next) {
url=d.data.next;
loadAll();
}
else {
deferred.resolve(aggregateData.value);
}
})
}
debugger;
loadAll();
return deferred.promise;
};
I used the aggregateData array but you are free to use any array declared in the loadData function.

Related

Angular response objects and storing the data

I'm trying to take the response of an $http request and save it to a custom cache. I want to then use that cache to display data into the view. I thought the cache would be checked automatically on each request before fetching new data, but that doesn't seem to be working for me.
The problem I'm having is I can't seem to save the data. The following function needs to make 2 requests: articles and images.
getImages: function() {
var cache = $cacheFactory('articlesCache');
$http.get(posts)
.then(function (data) {
var articles = data;
angular.forEach(articles, function (article) {
var imageId = {id: article.image_id};
$http.post(images, imageId)
.then(function (response) {
article.image = response;
cache.put(article.url, article);
});
});
});
return cache;
}
This creates the custom cache, but there's no data in the returned object. I know now that I can't save the data this way, but I don't know why or how I would go about doing it.
Can anyone explain how storing response data works? Where, if at all, does using promises come in here?
Your return statement executes before the code in your then function does. If you want to return the cache you'll want to run everything through the $q service and then return the resolved promise.
This is probably not the best way to use $cacheFactory. Typically you'd expose your cache as a service at a higher level and then access the cache via the service where needed.
So on your main module you'd have something like this to create the cache.
.factory('cache', function ($cacheFactory) {
var results = $cacheFactory('articleCache');
return results;
})
Then where ever you need the cache you inject it into the controller and use cache.get to retrieve the data from it.
If you want to use $q to implement this, your code would look something like the code below. (Disclaimer: I've never used $q with $cacheFactory like this, so without all of your components, I can't really test it, but this should be close.)
var imageService = function ($http, $q,$cacheFactory) {
var imageFactory = {};
imageService.cache = $cacheFactory('articlesCache');
imageFactory.getImages = function () {
var images = $q.defer();
$http.get(posts)
.then(function (data) {
var articles = data;
angular.forEach(articles, function (article) {
var imageId = {id: article.image_id};
$http.post(images, imageId)
.then(function (response) {
article.image = response;
cache.put(article.url, article);
});
images.resolve(cache.get('articlesCache'))
});
});
return images.promise
app.factory('ImageService', ['$http', '$q', '$cacheFactory', imageService]);
});
I adapted the code from this answer: How to get data by service and $cacheFactory by one method
That answer is just doing a straight $http.get though. If I understand what you're doing, you already have the data, you are posting it to your server and you want to avoid making get call to retrieve the list, since you have it locally.

Order of execution of $http callbacks

It seems that factory methods execution priority is the highest, so that callbacks has no data to deal with. What is the best way to make this work?
I got this kind of factory
app.factory('jsonService', function($http) {
return {
getDistricts: function(callback) {
$http.get('data/districts.json').success(callback);
},
getLocations: function(path,callback) {
$http.get('data/'+path+'.json').success(callback);
}
};
});
And controller
var app = angular.module('sandbox', []);
app.controller('sandboxCtrl',function ($scope,jsonService) {
//This one works
$scope.init1= function(){
jsonService.getDistricts(function(data){
$scope.districts = data;
$scope.currentDistrict = $scope.districts[0].name;
jsonService.getLocations($scope.currentDistrict,function(data){
$scope.locations1 = data;
})
});
};
$scope.init1();
//This one does not
$scope.init2= function(){
jsonService.getDistricts(function(data){
$scope.districts = data;
$scope.currentDistrict = $scope.districts[0].name;
})
jsonService.getLocations($scope.currentDistrict,function(data){
$scope.locations1 = data;
});
};
$scope.init2();
});
Here is working plunker
Angular has an implementation of promises named $q (documentation) that you should read up upon.
There is a race condition due to the async nature of http calls. Please review the updated code linked to below that shows an example of your code running (successfully) using promises to handle your two calls in succession.
So upon success of your first call it will call your second service method all without using callbacks thanks to the power of promises.
jsonService.getDistricts()
.success(function(data) {
$scope.districts = data;
$scope.currentDistrict = $scope.districts[0].name;
jsonService.getLocations($scope.currentDistrict)
.success(function(locationData) {
$scope.locations = locationData;
})
});
updated PLKR
Promise clarification:
The raw implementation of basic promises uses then to handle responses and promises returned from $http add additional methods (success, error) that will unpack your data from the response object that you would need to handle if your just use then.
init1() is the correct way of doing this. init2() does work because jsonService.getLocations() is getting invoked before jsonService.getDistritcs() completes. The angular $http service is asynchronous. Since jsonService.getLocations() depends on data from jsonServicd.getDistricts() you must wait until .getDistricts() completes before calling .getLocations(). One way to do that is to call .getLocations() within the .getDitricts() callback, just as you did in init1().

Assign multiple $http return data to an array in the called order

$scope.iter = 0;
$scope.myArray.forEach(function () {
$http.get($scope.myArray[$scope.iter].URL)
.success(function (data) {
$scope.myArray2.push(data);
//$scope.myArray2[$scope.iter]=data
});
$scope.iter++;
})
The above code works but I want the results in myArray2 in the same order as it was called. I know that I cannot expect $scope.myArray2[$scope.iter]=data to work but that is what I need.
I looked at the angular documentation on promises but could not make out how to use it for the above.
You can put all promises from the get requests in an array and use $q.all() to create a promise that resolves when all underlying promises resolve. You can then iterate the responses in the order they were added to the requests array, and push each response's data into the array in order...
function controller ($scope, $q) {
// ...
var requests = [];
var $scope.myArray2 = [];
angular.forEach($scope.myArray, function (value) {
requests.push($http.get(value.URL));
});
$q.all(requests).then(function(results) {
angular.forEach(results, function(result) {
$scope.myArray2.push(result.data);
});
});
}
Dont understand what you are trying to achieve, but here is an example of simple deferred promises in a controller:
var firstDefer= $q.defer();
firstDefer.promise.then(function(thing){
// here you make the first request,
// only when the first request is completed
//the variable that you return will be filled and
//returned. The thing that you return in the first .then
// is the parameter that you receive in the second .then
return thingPlusRequestData;
}).then(function(thingPlusRequestData){
//second request
return thingPlusPlusRequestData;
}).then(function(thingPlusPlusRequestData){
//and so on...
});
firstDefer.resolve(thing);
//when you call .resolve it tries to "accomplish" the first promise
//you can pass something if you want as a parameter and it will be
// the first .then parameter.
Hope this helps u :D
You will normally NOT get the results in the order you called the $http.get(...) function. Mind that the success(...) function is called asynchronously, whenever the http response comes in, and the order of those responses is totaly unpredictable.
However you can work around this by waiting for all the responses to finish, and then sort them according to your criteria.
Here is the working fiddle: http://fiddle.jshell.net/3C8R3/3/

AngularJS Service -> Controller population

All over my code I have things like:
SearchModel.findAll($scope.report).then(function (xhr) {
$scope.searchResults= xhr.data;
});
is there anyway to just automagically assign the searchResults variable to the view after the request is done. Seems like there should be if not...
Promises are only resolved during a $digest cycle, so this should "automagically" update.
It really is that easy!
To prove it I made a fiddle that simulates a server response using a service and assign the data to a scope. The dom will automatically display the data.
service.get().then(function(data) {
$scope.data = data;
});
Hope this helped!
If you are dealing with a promise that returns an array, you can use a helper function like this:
app.factory('PromiseList', function() {
return function(promise, error) {
var list = [];
promise.then(function (result) {
angular.copy(result, list); # or in your case .copy(result.data, list)
}, error);
return list;
}
});
Then in your code, do:
$scope.searchResults = PromiseList(SearchModel.findAll($scope.report))
You can also use this solution with other kinds of objects, however not with strings or numbers as they are immutable objects in JavaScript.
If you are only developing for an old version of AngularJS (think pre-1.2), you can also just pass the promise to the template and it will be unwrapped automatically.

How to wait till the response comes from the $http request, in angularjs?

I am using some data which is from a RESTful service in multiple pages.
So I am using angular factories for that. So, I required to get the data once from the server, and everytime I am getting the data with that defined service. Just like a global variables. Here is the sample:
var myApp = angular.module('myservices', []);
myApp.factory('myService', function($http) {
$http({method:"GET", url:"/my/url"}).success(function(result){
return result;
});
});
In my controller I am using this service as:
function myFunction($scope, myService) {
$scope.data = myService;
console.log("data.name"+$scope.data.name);
}
Its working fine for me as per my requirements.
But the problem here is, when I reloaded in my webpage the service will gets called again and requests for server. If in between some other function executes which is dependent on the "defined service", It's giving the error like "something" is undefined. So I want to wait in my script till the service is loaded. How can I do that? Is there anyway do that in angularjs?
You should use promises for async operations where you don't know when it will be completed. A promise "represents an operation that hasn't completed yet, but is expected in the future." (https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Promise)
An example implementation would be like:
myApp.factory('myService', function($http) {
var getData = function() {
// Angular $http() and then() both return promises themselves
return $http({method:"GET", url:"/my/url"}).then(function(result){
// What we return here is the data that will be accessible
// to us after the promise resolves
return result.data;
});
};
return { getData: getData };
});
function myFunction($scope, myService) {
var myDataPromise = myService.getData();
myDataPromise.then(function(result) {
// this is only run after getData() resolves
$scope.data = result;
console.log("data.name"+$scope.data.name);
});
}
Edit: Regarding Sujoys comment that
What do I need to do so that myFuction() call won't return till .then() function finishes execution.
function myFunction($scope, myService) {
var myDataPromise = myService.getData();
myDataPromise.then(function(result) {
$scope.data = result;
console.log("data.name"+$scope.data.name);
});
console.log("This will get printed before data.name inside then. And I don't want that.");
}
Well, let's suppose the call to getData() took 10 seconds to complete. If the function didn't return anything in that time, it would effectively become normal synchronous code and would hang the browser until it completed.
With the promise returning instantly though, the browser is free to continue on with other code in the meantime. Once the promise resolves/fails, the then() call is triggered. So it makes much more sense this way, even if it might make the flow of your code a bit more complex (complexity is a common problem of async/parallel programming in general after all!)
for people new to this you can also use a callback for example:
In your service:
.factory('DataHandler',function ($http){
var GetRandomArtists = function(data, callback){
$http.post(URL, data).success(function (response) {
callback(response);
});
}
})
In your controller:
DataHandler.GetRandomArtists(3, function(response){
$scope.data.random_artists = response;
});
I was having the same problem and none if these worked for me. Here is what did work though...
app.factory('myService', function($http) {
var data = function (value) {
return $http.get(value);
}
return { data: data }
});
and then the function that uses it is...
vm.search = function(value) {
var recieved_data = myService.data(value);
recieved_data.then(
function(fulfillment){
vm.tags = fulfillment.data;
}, function(){
console.log("Server did not send tag data.");
});
};
The service isn't that necessary but I think its a good practise for extensibility. Most of what you will need for one will for any other, especially when using APIs. Anyway I hope this was helpful.
FYI, this is using Angularfire so it may vary a bit for a different service or other use but should solve the same isse $http has. I had this same issue only solution that fit for me the best was to combine all services/factories into a single promise on the scope. On each route/view that needed these services/etc to be loaded I put any functions that require loaded data inside the controller function i.e. myfunct() and the main app.js on run after auth i put
myservice.$loaded().then(function() {$rootScope.myservice = myservice;});
and in the view I just did
ng-if="myservice" ng-init="somevar=myfunct()"
in the first/parent view element/wrapper so the controller can run everything inside
myfunct()
without worrying about async promises/order/queue issues. I hope that helps someone with the same issues I had.

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