NodeJS no data returned from function

Question

I am working on a simple weather application which uses mysql database that has just the names of the cities. Than i query the database for all the names and i send request to openweathermap's API for the weather info.

function getCities() {
  con.connect();
  con.query(('SELECT city_name FROM cities'), (err, res) => {
    console.log(res);
    getWeather(cities);
  });
};

async function getWeather(cities) {
  var data = [];
  for (var i = 0; i < cities.length; i++) {
    var url = `http://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather?q=${cities[i].city_name}&units=metric&appid=271d1234d3f497eed5b1d80a07b3fcd1`;
    await request(url, (err, res, body) => {
      var json = JSON.parse(body);
      var weather = {
        city: json.name,
        temperature: json.main.temp,
        description: json.weather[0].description,
        icon: json.weather[0].icon
      };
      data.push(weather);
    });
  }
  console.log(data);
}

The getCities() function works as expected and returns all the cities but the errors happen in the getWeather function particulary these errors:

Desktop/WeatherApp/node_modules/request-promise-core/lib/plumbing.js:130
            throw thrownException;
            ^

TypeError: Cannot read property 'temp' of undefined
    at Request.request [as _rp_callbackOrig] (/home/kristijan/Desktop/WeatherApp/app.js:60:41)
    at Request.plumbing.callback (/home/kristijan/Desktop/WeatherApp/node_modules/request-promise-core/lib/plumbing.js:76:39)
    at Request.RP$callback [as _callback] (/home/kristijan/Desktop/WeatherApp/node_modules/request-promise-core/lib/plumbing.js:46:31)
    at Request.self.callback (/home/kristijan/Desktop/WeatherApp/node_modules/request/request.js:185:22)
    at Request.emit (events.js:182:13)
    at Request.<anonymous> (/home/kristijan/Desktop/WeatherApp/node_modules/request/request.js:1161:10)
    at Request.emit (events.js:182:13)
    at IncomingMessage.<anonymous> (/home/kristijan/Desktop/WeatherApp/node_modules/request/request.js:1083:12)
    at Object.onceWrapper (events.js:273:13)
    at IncomingMessage.emit (events.js:187:15)
    at endReadableNT (_stream_readable.js:1094:12)
    at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:63:19)

As far as i understood it is jumping the inside of the arrow function before getting the result from the API?

Answer 1

await only waits for the async operation if the function result you are awaiting returns a promise. The request() function does not return a promise (it works with the callback you are passing it) and thus await does not wait for that result. You can use the request-promise library instead which does return a promise and you do not pass it a callback.

Here's an example:

const rp = require('request-promise');

async function getWeather(cities) {
  let data = [];
  for (let i = 0; i < cities.length; i++) {
    let url = `http://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather?q=${cities[i].city_name}&units=metric&appid=271d1234d3f497eed5b1d80a07b3fcd1`;
    let body = await rp(url);
    let json = JSON.parse(body);
    let weather = {
        city: json.name,
        temperature: json.main.temp,
        description: json.weather[0].description,
        icon: json.weather[0].icon
    };
    data.push(weather);
  }
  console.log(data);
}

Note, you can also let the request API parse the JSON for you automatically:

const rp = require('request-promise');

async function getWeather(cities) {
  let data = [];
  for (let i = 0; i < cities.length; i++) {
    let url = `http://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather?q=${cities[i].city_name}&units=metric&appid=271d1234d3f497eed5b1d80a07b3fcd1`;
    let json = await rp({uri:url, json: true});
    let weather = {
        city: json.name,
        temperature: json.main.temp,
        description: json.weather[0].description,
        icon: json.weather[0].icon
    };
    data.push(weather);
  }
  console.log(data);
}

---

EDIT Jan, 2020 - request() module in maintenance mode

FYI, the request module and its derivatives like request-promise are now in maintenance mode and will not be actively developed to add new features. You can read more about the reasoninghere . There is a list of alternatives in this table with some discussion of each one. I have been using got() myself and it's built from the beginning to use promises and is simple to use.