Serial provide a simple way for management of serial async call, so you can remember the API just by a glance.

If you think async and promise is somehow complicated, consider using chemzqm/parallel and chemzqm/serial to make your life easier.

Via npm:

npm install node-serial

Via component:

component install chemzqm/serial

• Unified error handling.
• Timeout support for individual callback.
• Immediate finished when error occur.
• Get previous callback result through ctx.res.
• Save and get properties on ctx object.
• No magic on finished callback, just one function.

You must have component installed for browser usage and mocha, mocha-phantomjs installed for testing.

$ npm install -g component mocha mocha-phantomjs
$ git clone git@github.com:chemzqm/serial.git
$ cd serial && npm install
$ make
#run test on server side
$ make test
#run test on phantomjs
$ make phantomjs

function square(n, done) {
  setTimeout(function(){
    done(null, n * n);
  }, 100);
}
var Serial = require('serial'); //The name is 'node-serial' in node environment
var serial = new Serial();
serial.timeout(1000);
[1, 2, 3].forEach(function(){
  serial.add(function(done, ctx){
    square( 1 + (ctx.res || 0), function (err ,res) {
      done(err, res);
    })
  })
})
serial.done(function (err, ctx) {
  if (err) throw err;
  // ctx.res => 25
});

Init new Serial instance.

Set the timeout to number ms, default is 10s.

Note this timeout if for individual callback function.

Add Function to serial, the first argument is a callback function, it should be called with error as first argument and result you need as secound argument. the secound argument is a ctx obejct, it's res attribute contains the result of the previous function call, you can save any object on ctx as you need.

The callback function is called with error (null or undefined if not exist) and the result array when all the request get finished (or timeout reached).

Note, this function should only be called once.

MIT