Unexpected promise returned in React Native

Question

I am just beginning to work with promises in React and cannot explain why I am returning a promise in a function and not the array I want.

The code is as follows:

async function pullTweets () {  
  let twitterRest = new TwitterRest(); //create a new instance of TwitterRest Class   
  var twatts = await twitterRest.pullTimeLine('google'); //pull the Google TimeLine
  console.log(twatts);
  return twatts;
}

let twitts = pullTweets();
console.log(twitts);

The console.log(twatts); is returning the correct array of tweets; however, the console.log(twitts) is returning a promise.

Any explanation would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Answer 1

You need to wait for pullTweets() which is an asynchronous function (that returns a Promise as well) to finish executing.

This can be done by using the keyword await before pullTweets() :

let twitts = await pullTweets();
console.log(twitts);

The code you wrote is equivalent to this (using only Promises):

function pullTweets () {  
  let twitterRest = new TwitterRest();
  return twitterRest.pullTimeLine('google').then((twatt) => {
    // This logs the array since the promise has resolved successfully
    console.log(twatt)
    return twatt
  })
}

let twitts = pullTweets();

// This logs a pending promise since the promise has not finished resolving
console.log(twitts);