async

Control Flow

Execute an array of functions in series, each one running once the previous function has completed. If any functions in the series pass an error to its callback, no more functions are run, and the main callback is immediately called with the value of the error.

async.series([
  function(callback) { 
    // do some stuff ...
    callback(null, 'one'); 
  },
  function(callback) { 
    // do some more stuff ...
    callback(null, 'two'); 
  }
],
function(err, results) {
  // results is now equal to ['one', 'two']
});

Collections

Apply a function to each item in a collection and collect the results. For example, you can use `async.map` to get the file stats for an array of file names.

async.map(['file1','file2','file3'], fs.stat, function(err, results) {
  // results is now an array of stats for each file
});

Utilities

Repeatedly call a function a set number of times and collect the results. It's useful for seeding databases, among other things.

async.times(5, function(n, next) {
  createUser(n, function(err, user) {
    next(err, user);
  });
}, function(err, users) {
  // we should now have 5 users
});