How to write an async renderer?

[cyrus-and]

Marked version: v4.1.1

Describe the bug

Despite #2474 fixes #458, I don't see how I can write an async renderer, it seems that the former merely allows to write an async version of the walkTokens function.

To Reproduce

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/marked/marked.min.js"></script>
<script>
  marked.use({
      renderer: {
          async link(href, title, text) {
              return 'x';
          }
      }
  });
  alert(marked.parse('[a](b)'));
</script>

Expected behavior

I expected to see x in the output, and not <p>[object Promise]</p>.

[UziTech]

it seems that the former merely allows to write an async version of the walkTokens function.

That is essentially what it does. Having async functions in the renderer or tokenizer would require lots of duplicate code in order to not break things or slow down marked for anyone who doesn't need it to be async.

You can see an example of how to make marked async in the docs.

[cyrus-and]

So the question remains, how can I achieve the same using walkTokens only? AFAIK I cannot change the token body with that, the example you linked works (for links) for the title property, if I try to change the text property it doesn't, and I think it makes sense that way.

[UziTech]

Can you give some example markdown and expected output?

[cyrus-and]

I basically want to override the link text in certain conditions, and using a renderer would work fine, the problem is that I need to perform some async operations in doing that.

From:

[some-text](url)

to:

<a href="url">some-other-text</a>

[UziTech]

The text for a link is tokenized since it can have other markdown tokens inside of it. Here is an example that changes the link text and re tokenizes it:

import { marked } from 'marked';

const myAsyncExtension = {
  async: true,
  async walkTokens(token) {
    if (token.type === 'link') {
      const newText = await somethingAsync(token);

      // `this` in a walkTokens function is `marked`.
      // tokenize the `newText` so the renderer can render it correctly.
      // `newText` can be inline markdown.
      token.tokens = this.Lexer.lexInline(newText)
    }
  }
};

async function somethingAsync(token) {
  await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, 100));
  return token.text + ' async';
}

marked.use(myAsyncExtension);

const md = `
[test](/url "title")
`;

console.log(await marked.parse(md));
// <p><a href="/url" title="title">test async</a></p>

[cyrus-and]

Awesome, that will do it. Thank you so much for the quick support!