Faster way of getting contract property in Web3js

Question

Using web3js 0.20.2 and truffle-contract, I have been getting public properties of my contract by doing

Foo.deployed().then(function(instance) { 
    instance.rate.call().then((r) => {
        console.log(r)
    })
});

Came across a less verbose way of writing the same code [here], which does something like

Foo.deployed().then(function(instance) { 
    console.log(instance.rate())
});

In the linked webpage, the author suggested the following where k is the contract instance:

for(i = 0; i < k.size(); i++) {
    someFunc( k.balances(k.addressLUT(i)) );
}

to avoid

for(i = 0; i < k.size(); i++) {
    k.addressLUT(i).call().then((res) => {
        k.balances(res).call().then((res) => {
            someFunc(res)
        })
    })
}

However when I try out the second method, why is instance.name() giving me a promise, similar to using instance.name.call()? Shouldnt we get the value immediately without waiting for the Promise to be resolved?

instance.rate()

> instance.rate()

Promise {[[PromiseStatus]]: "pending", [[PromiseValue]]: undefined}
__proto__: Promise
[[PromiseStatus]]: "resolved"
[[PromiseValue]]: BigNumber

instance.rate.call()

> instance.rate.call()

Promise {[[PromiseStatus]]: "pending", [[PromiseValue]]: undefined}
__proto__: Promise
[[PromiseStatus]]: "resolved"
[[PromiseValue]]: BigNumber

Miguel Mota · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-19T07:37:31.387

truffle-contract treats constant method calls as promises to be consistent in it's library API design with transactional method calls. The best wait to simulate synchronous calls is to use async/await when dealing with JavaScript promises.

Here's an example:

async function example () {
    const k = await Foo.deployed()

    for (let i = 0; i < k.size(); i++) {
        someFunc(await k.balances(await k.addressLUT(i).call()))
    }
}

If your solidity method is using the constant modifier than you don't need to use .call() in your JavaScript. You should always use constant if your function doesn't modify any storage state because it tells the compiler that it'll only perform read actions therefore it infers no gas costs.

Faster way of getting contract property in Web3js

1 Answers1