How to Create a Promise Returning Helper Function for Your React Hook

Learn how to convert your helper function into an async function that returns a promise, making it ideal for use with React hooks in this step-by-step guide.
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How to Create a Promise Returning Helper Function for Your React Hook

If you're diving into React and working with async operations, you might encounter issues when trying to fetch data from an API using hooks like useEffect and useState. One common problem is when a helper function that fetches data does not return a promise. In this guide, we'll explore how to adjust your helper function to work seamlessly with React hooks, ensuring your application runs smoothly.

The Problem

You might have a functional component that attempts to fetch data but encounters an error such as:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

This error often occurs when the function used to fetch data does not properly return a promise. In the given example, the helper function requestInfo is supposed to fetch a list of people, but fails to return the expected data.

Here's a sample of what your code may look like:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

The requestInfo function located in helpers.js may look like this:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

In this configuration, the requestInfo function does not return a promise as intended.

The Solution

Step 1: Modify the requestInfo function

To ensure that the requestInfo function returns a promise, you should utilize async/await. This will allow you to handle the fetch request more effectively. Here's how to correctly implement it:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Explanation:

By declaring the function as async, it allows the use of the await keyword to pause the execution until the promise settles (either resolved or rejected).

Finally, it returns the results contained in the JSON response.

Step 2: Update the useEffect Hook

With the requestInfo function now correctly returning a promise, you need to handle it in the useEffect hook by also using async/await. Here's the updated implementation:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Key Points:

We define an inner asynchronous function getAsyncInfo within the useEffect to retrieve the data.

Call getAsyncInfo() to initiate the fetch and update the state accordingly.

Conclusion

Now that you've modified both the requestInfo helper function and the useEffect hook, your React component should run without errors, properly fetching and displaying the number of people in the game.

With these adjustments, you can ensure that your React application handles asynchronous data fetching correctly, making it more robust and user-friendly. If you have more questions or need further assistance, feel free to reach out or leave comments below!