While loop with promises

Solution 1:

Here's a reusable function that I think is pretty clear.

var Q = require("q");

// `condition` is a function that returns a boolean
// `body` is a function that returns a promise
// returns a promise for the completion of the loop
function promiseWhile(condition, body) {
    var done = Q.defer();

    function loop() {
        // When the result of calling `condition` is no longer true, we are
        // done.
        if (!condition()) return done.resolve();
        // Use `when`, in case `body` does not return a promise.
        // When it completes loop again otherwise, if it fails, reject the
        // done promise
        Q.when(body(), loop, done.reject);
    }

    // Start running the loop in the next tick so that this function is
    // completely async. It would be unexpected if `body` was called
    // synchronously the first time.
    Q.nextTick(loop);

    // The promise
    return done.promise;
}


// Usage
var index = 1;
promiseWhile(function () { return index <= 11; }, function () {
    console.log(index);
    index++;
    return Q.delay(500); // arbitrary async
}).then(function () {
    console.log("done");
}).done();

Solution 2:

This is the simplest way I've found to express the basic pattern: you define a function that calls the promise, checks its result, and then either calls itself again or terminates.

const doSomething = value =>
  new Promise(resolve => 
    setTimeout(() => resolve(value >= 5 ? 'ok': 'no'), 1000))

const loop = value =>
  doSomething(value).then(result => {
    console.log(value)
    if (result === 'ok') {
      console.log('yay')      
    } else {
      return loop(value + 1)
    }
  })

loop(1).then(() => console.log('all done!'))

See it in action on JSBin

If you were using a promise that resolves or rejects, you would define then and catch instead of using an if-clause.

If you had an array of promises, you would just change loop to shift or pop the next one each time.

EDIT: Here's a version that uses async/await, because it's 2018:

const loop = async value => {
  let result = null
  while (result != 'ok') {
    console.log(value)
    result = await doSomething(value)
    value = value + 1
  }
  console.log('yay')
}

See it in action on CodePen

As you can see, it uses a normal while loop and no recursion.