[javascript] Returning data from Axios API

I am trying to use a Node.JS application to make and receive API requests. It does a get request to another server using Axios with data it receives from an API call it receives. The second snippet is when the script returns the data from the call in. It will actually take it and write to the console, but it won't send it back in the second API.

function axiosTest() {
    axios.get(url)
        .then(function (response) {
            console.log(response.data);
            // I need this data here ^^
            return response.data;
        })
        .catch(function (error) {
            console.log(error);
        });
}

...

axiosTestResult = axiosTest(); 
response.json({message: "Request received!", data: axiosTestResult});

I'm aware this is wrong, I'm just trying to find a way to make it work. The only way I can seem to get data out of it is through console.log, which isn't helpful in my situation.

I know this post is old. But i have seen several attempts of guys trying to answer using async and await but getting it wrong. This should clear it up for any new references

async function axiosTest() {
      try {
        const {data:response} = await axios.get(url) //use data destructuring to get data from the promise object
        return response
      }

      catch (error) {
        console.log(error);
      }
    }

IMO extremely important rule of thumb for your client side js code is to keep separated the data handling and ui building logic into different funcs, which is also valid for axios data fetching ... in this way your control flow and error handlings will be much more simple and easier to manage, as it could be seen from this ok fetch

and this NOK fetch

<script src="https://unpkg.com/axios/dist/axios.min.js"></script>
    <script>

       function getUrlParams (){
          var url_params = new URLSearchParams();
          if( window.location.toString().indexOf("?") != -1) {
             var href_part = window.location.search.split('?')[1]
             href_part.replace(/([^=&]+)=([^&]*)/g,
                function(m, key, value) {
                   var attr = decodeURIComponent(key)
                   var val = decodeURIComponent(value)
                   url_params.append(attr,val);
             });
          }
          // for(var pair of url_params.entries()) { consolas.log(pair[0]+ '->'+ pair[1]); }
          return url_params ;
       }


      function getServerData (url, urlParams ){
          if ( typeof url_params == "undefined" ) { urlParams = getUrlParams()  }
          return axios.get(url , { params: urlParams } )
          .then(response => {
             return response ;
          })
          .catch(function(error) {
             console.error ( error )
             return error.response;
          })
       }

    // Action !!!
    getServerData(url , url_params)
        .then( response => {
           if ( response.status === 204 ) {
              var warningMsg = response.statusText
              console.warn ( warningMsg )
              return
           } else if ( response.status === 404 || response.status === 400) {
              var errorMsg = response.statusText // + ": "  + response.data.msg // this is my api
              console.error( errorMsg )
              return ;
           } else {
              var data = response.data
              var dataType = (typeof data)
              if ( dataType === 'undefined' ) {
                 var msg = 'unexpected error occurred while fetching data !!!'
                 // pass here to the ui change method the msg aka
                 // showMyMsg ( msg , "error")
              } else {
                 var items = data.dat // obs this is my api aka "dat" attribute - that is whatever happens to be your json key to get the data from
                 // call here the ui building method
                 // BuildList ( items )
              }
              return
           }

        })




    </script>

axiosTest() is firing asynchronously and not being waited for.

A then() function needs to be hooked up afterwards in order to capture the response variable (axiosTestData).

See Promise for more info.

See Async to level up.

// Dummy Url._x000D_
const url = 'https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts/1'_x000D_
_x000D_
// Axios Test._x000D_
const axiosTest = axios.get_x000D_
_x000D_
// Axios Test Data._x000D_
axiosTest(url).then(function(axiosTestResult) {_x000D_
  console.log('response.JSON:', {_x000D_
    message: 'Request received',_x000D_
    data: axiosTestResult.data_x000D_
  })_x000D_
})

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/axios/0.18.0/axios.js"></script>

    async handleResponse(){
      const result = await this.axiosTest();
    }

    async axiosTest () {
    return await axios.get(url)
    .then(function (response) {
            console.log(response.data);
            return response.data;})
.catch(function (error) {
    console.log(error);
});
}

You can find check https://flaviocopes.com/axios/#post-requests url and find some relevant information in the GET section of this post.

The axios library creates a Promise() object. Promise is a built-in object in JavaScript ES6. When this object is instantiated using the new keyword, it takes a function as an argument. This single function in turn takes two arguments, each of which are also functions — resolve and reject.

Promises execute the client side code and, due to cool Javascript asynchronous flow, could eventually resolve one or two things, that resolution (generally considered to be a semantically equivalent to a Promise's success), or that rejection (widely considered to be an erroneous resolution). For instance, we can hold a reference to some Promise object which comprises a function that will eventually return a response object (that would be contained in the Promise object). So one way we could use such a promise is wait for the promise to resolve to some kind of response.

You might raise we don't want to be waiting seconds or so for our API to return a call! We want our UI to be able to do things while waiting for the API response. Failing that we would have a very slow user interface. So how do we handle this problem?

Well a Promise is asynchronous. In a standard implementation of engines responsible for executing Javascript code (such as Node, or the common browser) it will resolve in another process while we don't know in advance what the result of the promise will be. A usual strategy is to then send our functions (i.e. a React setState function for a class) to the promise, resolved depending on some kind of condition (dependent on our choice of library). This will result in our local Javascript objects being updated based on promise resolution. So instead of getters and setters (in traditional OOP) you can think of functions that you might send to your asynchronous methods.

I'll use Fetch in this example so you can try to understand what's going on in the promise and see if you can replicate my ideas within your axios code. Fetch is basically similar to axios without the innate JSON conversion, and has a different flow for resolving promises (which you should refer to the axios documentation to learn).

GetCache.js

const base_endpoint = BaseEndpoint + "cache/";
// Default function is going to take a selection, date, and a callback to execute.
// We're going to call the base endpoint and selection string passed to the original function.
// This will make our endpoint.
export default (selection, date, callback) => {  
  fetch(base_endpoint + selection + "/" + date) 
     // If the response is not within a 500 (according to Fetch docs) our promise object
     // will _eventually_ resolve to a response. 
    .then(res => {
      // Lets check the status of the response to make sure it's good.
      if (res.status >= 400 && res.status < 600) {
        throw new Error("Bad response");
      }
      // Let's also check the headers to make sure that the server "reckons" its serving 
      //up json
      if (!res.headers.get("content-type").includes("application/json")) {
        throw new TypeError("Response not JSON");
      }
      return res.json();
    })
    // Fulfilling these conditions lets return the data. But how do we get it out of the promise? 
    .then(data => {
      // Using the function we passed to our original function silly! Since we've error 
      // handled above, we're ready to pass the response data as a callback.
      callback(data);
    })
    // Fetch's promise will throw an error by default if the webserver returns a 500 
    // response (as notified by the response code in the HTTP header). 
    .catch(err => console.error(err));
};

Now we've written our GetCache method, lets see what it looks like to update a React component's state as an example...

Some React Component.jsx

// Make sure you import GetCache from GetCache.js!

resolveData() {
    const { mySelection, date } = this.state; // We could also use props or pass to the function to acquire our selection and date.
    const setData = data => {
      this.setState({
        data: data,
        loading: false 
        // We could set loading to true and display a wee spinner 
        // while waiting for our response data, 
        // or rely on the local state of data being null.
      });
    };
  GetCache("mySelelection", date, setData);
  }

Ultimately, you don't "return" data as such, I mean you can but it's more idiomatic to change your way of thinking... Now we are sending data to asynchronous methods.

Happy Coding!

you can populate the data you want with a simple callback function, let's say we have a list named lst that we want to populate, we have a function that pupulates pupulates list,

const lst = [];  
const populateData = (data) => {lst.push(data)} 

now we can pass the callback function to the function which is making the axios call and we can pupulate the list when we get data from response.

now we make our function that makes the request and pass populateData as a callback function.

function axiosTest (populateData) {
        axios.get(url)
       .then(function(response){
               populateData(response.data);
        })
        .catch(function(error){
               console.log(error);
         });
}   

You can use Async - Await:

async function axiosTest() {
  const response = await axios.get(url);
  const data = await response.json();  
}