AngularJS: Using $q to fire ajax calls synchronously - ajax

Question

Is it possible to use $q to fire ajax requests synchronously in AngularJS?
I have a long list of vehicles, each vehicle has events associated with them and I need to retrieve the eventdetails of each event when the user expands the listing.
Right now, if the user expands the listing, I am firing up to 15 calls asynchronously and it seems to be causing issues with the API I'm consuming, so I'd like to see if performance is improved if I wait for each request finishes before firing the next.
I'm attempting to implement $q to delay the next request until the previous is finished, however I can't seem to wrap my head around using the service, here is what I currently have:
// On click on the event detail expander
$scope.grabEventDetails = function(dataReady, index) {
if (dataReady == false) {
retrieveEventDetails($scope.vehicles[index].events);
}
}
var retrieveEventDetails = function(events) {
// events is array
var deferred = $q.defer();
var promise = deferred.promise;
var retrieveData = function(data) {
return $http({
url: '/api/eventdetails',
method: 'POST',
data: {
event_number: data.number
},
isArray: true
});
}
_.each(events, function(single_event) {
promise.then(retrieveData(single_event).success(function(data) {
console.log(data);
}));
});
}
This is still firing asynchronously, Where am I going wrong with this?
I understand firing the requests synchronously isn't the best idea, at the moment I just want to see if performance is improved with the API at all.

Answer 1

You don't need $q to implement a promise as $http returns one.
_.each fires all the callbacks without especially waiting the promise.
All you do is call retrieveData for all events whenever your promise is resolved, and since you don't do a first call, it shouldn't even be working
You could do some recursive call like this :
var retrieveEventDetails = function(events) {
var evt = events.shift();
$http({
url: '/api/eventdetails',
method: 'POST',
data: {
event_number: evt.number
},
isArray: true
}).then(function(response){
console.log(response.data);
retrieveEventDetails(events);
});
}

Answer 2

I do think you should use $q as some other part of your application might need to get a promise.
A good example would be $routeProvider resolve option.
I made a little demo in plunker.
Solution:
retrieveData function should return a function (which returns a promise) instead of a just a promise.
That way we can create a promise chain: promise.then(fn).then(fn).then(fn).then(null,errorFn)
We must resolve the first promise to kick the chain.
var retrieveEventDetails = function(events) {
// events is array
var deferred = $q.defer();
var promise = deferred.promise;
var retrieveData = function(data) {
return function(){
return $http({
url: '/api/eventdetails',
method: 'POST',
data: {
event_number: data.number
},
isArray: true
})
}
}
deferred.resolve();
return events.reduce(function(promise, single_event){
return promise.then(retrieveData(single_event));
}, promise);
}

Answer 3

I'm not sure you even need $q here. In this example, each piece of data is registered in the controller as soon as it comes back from the call.
Live demo (click).
var app = angular.module('myApp', []);
app.controller('myCtrl', function($scope, myService) {
$scope.datas = myService.get();
});
app.factory('myService', function($http) {
var myService = {
get: function() {
var datas = {};
var i=0;
var length = 4;
makeCall(i, length, datas);
return datas;
}
}
function makeCall(i, length, datas) {
if (i < length) {
$http.get('test.text').then(function(resp) {
datas[i] = resp.data+i;
++i;
makeCall(i, length, datas);
});
}
}
return myService;
});
Here's a way using $q.all() that you can wait for all of the data to come through before passing it to the controller: Live demo (click).
var app = angular.module('myApp', []);
app.controller('myCtrl', function($scope, myService) {
myService.get().then(function(datas) {
$scope.datas = datas;
})
});
app.factory('myService', function($q, $http) {
var myService = {
get: function() {
var deferred = $q.defer();
var defs = [];
var promises = [];
var i=0;
var length = 4;
for(var j=0; j<length; ++j) {
defs[j] = $q.defer();
promises[j] = defs[j].promise;
}
makeCall(i, length, defs);
$q.all(promises).then(function(datas) {
deferred.resolve(datas);
});
return deferred.promise;
}
}
function makeCall(i, length, defs) {
if (i < length) {
$http.get('test.text').then(function(resp) {
defs[i].resolve(resp.data+i);
++i;
makeCall(i, length, defs);
})
}
}
return myService;
});