Testing Async Functions - asynchronous

I am using Wasm-Pack and I need to write a unit test for a asynchronous function that references a JavaScript Library. I tried using the futures::executor::block_on in order to get the asynchronous function to return so I could make an assert. However, blocking is not supported in the wasm build target. I can't test in a different target because the asynchronous function I am testing is referencing a JavaScript library. I also don't think I can spawn a new thread and handle the future there, because it need to return to the assert statement in the original thread. What is the best way to go about testing this asynchronous function?
Code being tested in src/lib.rs
use wasm_bindgen::prelude::*;
#[wasm_bindgen]
pub async fn func_to_test() -> bool {
return some_long_running_fuction().await;
}
Testing code in tests/web.rs
#![cfg(target_arch = "wasm32")]
extern crate wasm_bindgen_test;
use test_crate;
use futures::executor::block_on;
#[wasm_bindgen_test]
fn can_return_from_async(){
let ret = block_on(test_crate::func_to_test());
assert!(ret);
}
How do I test an async function if I can't use any blocking?

Rust can handle tests that are async functions themselves. Just change the test fuction to be async and throw in an await.
#[wasm_bindgen_test]
async fn can_return_from_async(){
let ret = test_crate::func_to_test().await
assert!(ret);
}

Related

Is there a way to poll several futures simultaniously in rust async

I'm trying to execute several sqlx queries in parallel given by a iterator.
This is probably the closest I've got so far.
let mut futures = HahshMap::new() // placeholder, filled HashMap in reality
.iter()
.map(async move |(_, item)| -> Result<(), sqlx::Error> {
let result = sqlx::query_file_as!(
// omitted
)
.fetch_one(&pool)
.await?;
channel.send(Enum::Event(result)).ignore();
Ok(())
})
.clollect();
futures::future::join_all(futures);
All queries and sends are independent from each other, so if one of them fails, the others should still get processed.
Futthermore the current async closure is not possible like this.
Rust doesn't yet have async closures. You instead need to have the closure return an async block:
move |(_, item)| async move { ... }
Additionally, make sure you .await the future returned by join_all in order to ensure the individual tasks are actually polled.

How to use Rust futures in callbacks?

Is there any way to use futures in callbacks? For example...
// Send message on multiple channels while removing ones that are closed.
use smol::channel::Sender;
...
// (expecting bool, found opaque type)
vec_of_sender.retain( |sender| async {
sender.send(msg.clone()).await.is_ok()
});
My work-around is to loop twice: On the first pass I delete closed senders (non-async) and on the second I do the actual send (async using for sender in ...). But it seems like I should be able to do it all in a single retain() call.
You can't use retain in this way. The closure that retain accepts must implement FnMut(&T) -> bool, but every async function returns an implementation of Future.
You can turn an async function into a synchronous one by blocking on it. For example, if you were using tokio, you could do this:
use tokio::runtime::Runtime;
let rt = Runtime::new().unwrap();
vec_of_sender.retain(|sender| {
rt.block_on(async { sender.send().await.is_ok() })
});
However, there is overhead to adding an async runtime, and I have a feeling that you are trying to solve the wrong problem.
The closure passed to retain must return a bool, but every async function returns impl Future. Instead, you can use Stream, which is the asynchronous version of Iterator. You can convert the vector into a Stream:
let stream = stream::iter(vec_of_sender);
And then use the filter method, which accepts an asynchronous closure and returns a new Stream:
let vec_of_sender = stream.filter(|sender| async {
sender.send(msg.clone()).await.is_ok()
}).collect::<Vec<Sender>>();
To avoid creating a new Vec, you can also use swap_remove:
let mut i = 0usize;
while i < vec_of_sender.len() {
if vec_of_sender[i].send(msg.clone()).await.is_ok() {
i += 1;
} else {
vec_of_sender.swap_remove(i);
}
}
Note that this will change the order of the vector.

Should I return await in Rust?

In JavaScript, async code is written with Promises and async/await syntax similar to that of Rust. It is generally considered redundant (and therefore discouraged) to return and await a Promise when it can simply be returned (i.e., when an async function is executed as the last thing in another function):
async function myFn() { /* ... */ }
async function myFn2() {
// do setup work
return await myFn()
// ^ this is not necessary when we can just return the Promise
}
I am wondering whether a similar pattern applies in Rust. Should I prefer this:
pub async fn my_function(
&mut self,
) -> Result<()> {
// do synchronous setup work
self.exec_command(
/* ... */
)
.await
}
Or this:
pub fn my_function(
&mut self,
) -> impl Future<Output = Result<()>> {
// do synchronous setup work
self.exec_command(
/* ... */
)
}
The former feels more ergonomic to me, but I suspect that the latter might be more performant. Is this the case?
One semantic difference between the two variants is that in the first variant the synchronous setup code will run only when the returned future is awaited, while in the second variant it will run as soon as the function is called:
let fut = x.my_function();
// in the second variant, the synchronous setup has finished by now
...
let val = fut.await; // in the first variant, it runs here
For the difference to be noticeable, the synchronous setup code must have side effects, and there needs to be a delay between calling the async function and awaiting the future it returns.
Unless you have specific reason to execute the preamble immediately, go with the async function, i.e. the first variant. It makes the function slightly more predictable, and makes it easier to add more awaits later as the function is refactored.
There is no real difference between the two since async just resolves down to impl Future<Output=Result<T, E>>. I don't believe there is any meaningful performance difference between the two, at least in my empirical usage of both.
If you are asking for preference in style then in my opinion the first one is preferred as the types are clearer to me and I agree it is more ergonomic.

How to process a vector as an asynchronous stream?

In my RSS reader project, I want to read my RSS feeds asynchronously. Currently, they're read synchronously thanks to this code block
self.feeds = self
.feeds
.iter()
.map(|f| f.read(&self.settings))
.collect::<Vec<Feed>>();
I want to make that code asynchronous, because it will allow me to better handle poor web server responses.
I understand I can use a Stream that I can create from my Vec using stream::from_iter(...) which transforms the code into something like
self.feeds = stream::from_iter(self.feeds.iter())
.map(|f| f.read(&self.settings))
// ???
.collect::<Vec<Feed>>()
}
But then, I have two questions
How to have results joined into a Vec (which is a synchronous struct)?
How to execute that stream? I was thinking about using task::spawn but it doesn't seems to work ...
How to execute that stream? I was thinking about using task::spawn but it doesn't seems to work
In the async/await world, asynchronous code is meant to be executed by an executor, which is not part of the standard library but provided by third-party crates such as tokio. task::spawn only schedules one instance of async fn to run, not actually running it.
How to have results joined into a vec (which is a sync struct)
The bread and butter of your rss reader seems to be f.read. It should be turned into an asynchronous function. Then the vector of feeds will be mapped into a vector of futures, which need to be polled to completion.
The futures crate has futures::stream::futures_unordered::FuturesUnordered to help you do that. FuturesUnordered itself implements Stream trait. This stream is then collected into the result vector and awaited to completion like so:
//# tokio = { version = "0.2.4", features = ["full"] }
//# futures = "0.3.1"
use tokio::time::delay_for;
use futures::stream::StreamExt;
use futures::stream::futures_unordered::FuturesUnordered;
use std::error::Error;
use std::time::{Duration, Instant};
#[tokio::main]
async fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn Error>> {
let start = Instant::now();
let feeds = (0..10).collect::<Vec<_>>();
let res = read_feeds(feeds).await;
dbg!(res);
dbg!(start.elapsed());
Ok(())
}
async fn read_feeds(feeds: Vec<u32>) -> Vec<u32> {
feeds.iter()
.map(read_feed)
.collect::<FuturesUnordered<_>>()
.collect::<Vec<_>>()
.await
}
async fn read_feed(feed: &u32) -> u32 {
delay_for(Duration::from_millis(500)).await;
feed * 2
}
delay_for is to simulate the potentially expensive operation. It also helps to demonstrate that these readings indeed happen concurrently without any explicit thread related logic.
One nuance here. Unlike its synchronous counterpart, the results of reading rss feeds aren't in the same order of feeds themselves any more, whichever returns the first will be at the front. You need to deal with that somehow.

async/await / assignments from function returns

Currently having a simple funtion :
async function getItem(id) {
const item = await ... doing a bunch of time consuming stuff
return item;
}
Coming from synchronous languages, and still understanding async/awaits from the surface; i'd expected the following to return the resolved item :
const item = getItem('items-8');
console.log(item); // Just getting a promise
The question is a bit 'cosmetic', but as async/await kind of solves callbacks, i'd be looking to get further and even avoid thenables things.
Is it possible to get such one-liner variable assignment with async/awaits ? What would be the syntax/code structure ?
async..await is syntactic sugar for ES6 promises, it allows to write asynchronous code in synchrounous-like manner. The code that uses promises cannot be synchronous, because promises are asynchronous.
In order to be written in synchronous manner, the code that uses getItem should reside in async function, too. If it is top-level and doesn't reside in another function (like application initialization code), it can reside in async IIFE.
It's either
getItem('items-8').then(item => {
...
});
Or
// inside `async` function
const item = await getItem('items-8');
...

Resources