node.js - (JavaScript) Synchronizing forEach Loop with callbacks inside

Question

I am doing some computations inside a double forEach Loop something like this:

array.forEach(function(element){
    Object.keys(element).forEach(function(key){

        /* some complex computations with asynchronous callbacks  */        

    });
});

someFunctionHere();

Is there a way for the Loop to finish first before doing the someFunctionHere( ) function? or any way that the program will know if the Loop is finish before continuing to someFunctionHere( ) ...

I may be missing some forums but the ones I found did not helped me of what I want to achieve and by the way I am doing this in NodeJS , also I am asking if there are existing libraries that can make this happen.

I forgot to Add this up or should this be an another question?

Is there a way to do the iteration synchronously that it will only proceed to the next iteration once the current iteration is done? (Sorry for this)

Thanks for any help...

Answer 1

Take a look at async.js, and especially its control flow statements, such as each whilst and until.

Using async.js you can get what you want to have.

In your actual situation what you want is the each function (which has formerly been known as forEach), respectively the eachSeries function which does not run the single iterations in parallel, but in serial (see the documentation for eachSeries for details).

To provide an example:

async.eachSeries([ 2, 3, 5, 7, 11 ], function (prime, callback) {
  console.log(prime);
  callback(); // Alternatively: callback(new Error());
}, function (err) {
  if (err) { throw err; }
  console.log('Well done :-)!');
});

This will iterate over the array of prime numbers and print them in the correct order, one after each other, and finally print out Well done :-)!.