Idiomatic way to wait for multiple callbacks in Node.js

Update:

Now I would advise to have a look at:

• Promises

  The Promise object is used for deferred and asynchronous computations. A Promise represents an operation that hasn't completed yet, but is expected in the future.

  A popular promises library is bluebird. A would advise to have a look at why promises.

  You should use promises to turn this:

  fs.readFile("file.json", function (err, val) {
      if (err) {
          console.error("unable to read file");
      }
      else {
          try {
              val = JSON.parse(val);
              console.log(val.success);
          }
          catch (e) {
              console.error("invalid json in file");
          }
      }
  });
  

  Into this:

  fs.readFileAsync("file.json").then(JSON.parse).then(function (val) {
      console.log(val.success);
  })
  .catch(SyntaxError, function (e) {
      console.error("invalid json in file");
  })
  .catch(function (e) {
      console.error("unable to read file");
  });
  

• generators: For example via co.

  Generator based control flow goodness for nodejs and the browser, using promises, letting you write non-blocking code in a nice-ish way.

  var co = require('co');
  
  co(function *(){
    // yield any promise
    var result = yield Promise.resolve(true);
  }).catch(onerror);
  
  co(function *(){
    // resolve multiple promises in parallel
    var a = Promise.resolve(1);
    var b = Promise.resolve(2);
    var c = Promise.resolve(3);
    var res = yield [a, b, c];
    console.log(res);
    // => [1, 2, 3]
  }).catch(onerror);
  
  // errors can be try/catched
  co(function *(){
    try {
      yield Promise.reject(new Error('boom'));
    } catch (err) {
      console.error(err.message); // "boom"
   }
  }).catch(onerror);
  
  function onerror(err) {
    // log any uncaught errors
    // co will not throw any errors you do not handle!!!
    // HANDLE ALL YOUR ERRORS!!!
    console.error(err.stack);
  }
  

---

If I understand correctly I think you should have a look at the very good async library. You should especially have a look at the series. Just a copy from the snippets from github page:

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


// an example using an object instead of an array
async.series({
    one: function(callback){
        setTimeout(function(){
            callback(null, 1);
        }, 200);
    },
    two: function(callback){
        setTimeout(function(){
            callback(null, 2);
        }, 100);
    },
},
function(err, results) {
    // results is now equals to: {one: 1, two: 2}
});

As a plus this library can also run in the browser.

The simplest way increment an integer counter when you start an async operation and then, in the callback, decrement the counter. Depending on the complexity, the callback could check the counter for zero and then delete the file.

A little more complex would be to maintain a list of objects, and each object would have any attributes that you need to identify the operation (it could even be the function call) as well as a status code. The callbacks would set the status code to completed.

Then you would have a loop that waits (using process.nextTick) and checks to see if all tasks are completed. The advantage of this method over the counter, is that if it is possible for all outstanding tasks to complete, before all tasks are issued, the counter technique would cause you to delete the file prematurely.