having issues implementing util promisify in node js

Question

I have been trying to get an example of util.promisify working on node (v 14) and for the life of me I can't get any of the examples available on the inte.net working.

this for example is a very simple example from a website which should work, but i always get an error saying "await is only valid in async function":

const fs = require('fs');
const util = require('util');

// Convert `fs.readFile()` into a function that takes the
// same parameters but returns a promise.
const readFile = util.promisify(fs.readFile);

// You can now use `readFile()` with `await`!
const buf = await readFile('../../package.json'); <-- this is where I get the error

const obj = JSON.parse(buf.toString('utf8'));
obj.name; // 'masteringjs.io'

console.log(obj);

I have even tried simple examples which don't use util.promisify but i can't get a single async await example from the inte.net to work.

What makes this even weirder is that quokka.js can run the code fine with no errors, it's only when I run node test.js that I get this error.

Quokka result for the code above:

Have I turned off a setting in node or something?? I'm really confused.

Answer 1

This is working for me

const fs = require('fs');
const util = require('util');

// Convert `fs.readFile()` into a function that takes the
// same parameters but returns a promise.
const readFile = util.promisify(fs.readFile);


const readFiles = async (path) =>{
    const buf = await readFile(path);
    const obj = JSON.parse(buf.toString('utf8'));
    // obj.name; // 'masteringjs.io'
    console.log(obj);
}
readFiles('./package.json').catch(err => {
    console.log(err)
})

One more way you can use is shown below Having async as self executing function without adding async keyword to actual function

 const readFile = util.promisify(fs.readFile);

// You can now use `readFile()` with `await`!
(async(path) => {
    const buf = await readFile(path);

    const obj = JSON.parse(buf.toString('utf8'));
    obj.name; // 'masteringjs.io'
    console.log(obj);
})('./package.json')

Answer 2

The code was correct (as it was not my code it was taken from a working example).

The issue was that node does not support top level async/await using CommonJS modules. Set "type" to "module" in package.json to use ES6 modules.

Once the above setting is used the code runs perfectly.