What is Awaited?

Note: I would like to remind you that I am writing a series on TypeScript utility types to enhance my understanding of TypeScript and its utility types. If you come across any incorrect information, please don't hesitate to let me know!

The term Awaited refers to one of the utility types in TypeScript. It is used to extract the type of value that a promise will eventually return, rather than the promise object itself. This utility type allows us to avoid using the .then() method repeatedly and instead await the promise directly.

Let's see how Awaited works

Let's fetch the users data from the JSONPlaceholder.

interface User {
    id: number;
    name: string;
}

First, we define types for users data and let's keep this simple, we will define types for id and name.

async function getUsers(): Promise<User[]> {
    const url = "https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/users";
    const res = await fetch(url);
    return res.json();
}

The getUsers function asynchronously fetches data from the URL, and returns a Promise that resolves to the parsed JSON data with an array of User objects.

type Users = Awaited<ReturnType<typeof getUsers>>;
// type Users1 = Awaited<Promise<User[]>>;

(async function processData() {
    const users: Users = await getUsers();
    console.log(users.slice(0, 2));
})();

To define the Users type, there are two ways:

1. Using ReturnType and Awaited

type Users = Awaited<ReturnType<typeof getUsers>>;

This line defines the Users type by using the ReturnType utility type to extract the return type of the getUsers function. It then applies the Awaited utility type to that return type. The Awaited utility type is used to indicate that the type being awaited is a promise. Ultimately, Users will represent an array of User objects.

1. Using Awaited directly:

type Users = Awaited<Promise<User[]>>;

This line defines the Users type by using the Awaited utility type directly on the Promise<User[]> type. It indicates that the awaited result is a promise, and the promised value is an array of User objects.

In both cases, the Users type represents an array of User objects. The typeof keyword works similarly to how you would retrieve the type of a variable in JavaScript. In this context, it returns the type of getUsers, which is User[].

Extra

A couple of examples that I was playing around with Awaited, Promise, and ReturnType to declare types for each.

type ShowString = Awaited<Promise<string>>;
// type ShowString = string
type ShowNumber = Awaited<ReturnType<() => number>>;
// type ShowNumber = number
type ShowBooleanAndNumber = Awaited<boolean | Promise<number>>;
// type ShowBooleanAndNumber = number | boolean
type ShowPromiseType = Awaited<ReturnType<() => Promise<number>>>;
// type ShowPromiseType = number

Example Code

interface User {
    id: number;
    name: string;
}

async function getUsers(): Promise<User[]> {
    const url = "https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/users";
    const res = await fetch(url);
    return res.json();
}

type Users = Awaited<ReturnType<typeof getUsers>>;
// type Users1 = Awaited<Promise<User[]>>;

(async function processData() {
    const users: Users = await getUsers();
    console.log(users.slice(0, 2));
})();

Recap

type MyPromise = Promise<number>;
type MyAwaited = Awaited<MyPromise>;

To keep this simple, Promise will return the promise object of whichever type you define, while Awaited will extract the type from the Promise. You can check this by hovering the mouse on MyPromise and MyAwaited. You would see the pop-up window saying type MyPromise = Promise<number> and type MyAwaited = number respectively.

Resources

• TS Handbook - Awaited Utility Type
• TS Handbook - ReturnType Utility Type

Thank you!

Thank you for your time and for reading this!

Originally published at victoriacheng15.vercel.app