Generators - what is this strange asterisk for?
A generator function is a special function whose body can be left at an arbitrary point and continued later on without losing its scope.
It returns a Generator which in itself is both an iterator and iterable object. It offers a next, return and throw method.
Inside a generator function a special yield keyword can be used to pass values out of the generator upon a call to next(). Generators yield values as long as they don't throw an error or return.
Examples:
describe('Generators', () => {
function* generateIdOnce(startId?: number) {
let lastId = startId ?? 0;
yield lastId++;
}
it('should generate a numerical id starting at 0 once', () => {
const generator = generateIdOnce();
expect(generator.next()).toEqual({ done: false, value: 0 });
expect(generator.next()).toEqual({ done: true, value: undefined });
});
function* generateInfiniteId(startId?: number): Generator {
let lastId = startId ?? 0;
while (true) {
yield lastId++;
}
}
const cases = new Array(99_999).fill(0).map((_, idx) => idx);
const infiniteIdGenerator = generateInfiniteId();
test.each(cases)('should generate a numerical id starting at 0 infinitely often', (expectedId) => {
expect(infiniteIdGenerator.next()).toEqual({ done: false, value: expectedId });
});
function* iterableGenerator() {
yield* new Array(5).fill(0).map((_, idx) => idx);
}
it('should yield values from other iterables', () => {
const generator = iterableGenerator();
expect(generator.next()).toEqual({ done: false, value: 0 });
expect(generator.next()).toEqual({ done: false, value: 1 });
expect(generator.next()).toEqual({ done: false, value: 2 });
expect(generator.next()).toEqual({ done: false, value: 3 });
expect(generator.next()).toEqual({ done: false, value: 4 });
expect(generator.next()).toEqual({ done: true, value: undefined });
});
function* future(startDate?: Date): Generator<Date, Date> {
let lastDate = startDate ?? new Date();
while (true) {
lastDate = new Date(lastDate.getTime() + 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);
yield lastDate;
}
}
it('should generate future dates for a calendar view', () => {
const generator = future(new Date('2022-05-18T00:00:00.000Z'));
expect(generator.next().value.toISOString()).toEqual('2022-05-19T00:00:00.000Z');
expect(generator.next().value.toISOString()).toEqual('2022-05-20T00:00:00.000Z');
expect(generator.next().value.toISOString()).toEqual('2022-05-21T00:00:00.000Z');
expect(generator.next().value.toISOString()).toEqual('2022-05-22T00:00:00.000Z');
});
});The return value of a next call is always an object containing done and the value itself. The function body is always only executed until the next yield statement and resumed from thereon.
As the examples show generators can be very useful to generate an infinite series of values such as IDs or dates. A big advantage is that generator values are lazily computed and memory efficient. You don't need to precalculate a large list of dates and keep them in memory because someone could somewhen need it.
Excellent resource about generators: https://exploringjs.com/es6/ch_generators.html
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