Data not visible outside Node Request function

Question

Im writing little scrap tool with Node(Express) searching urls from list. Problem is with access to results of search outside of request callback function in forEach loop. Please help - why results array are empty outside request? I want exports this results to the view. Also any variable defined inside request is not defined from outside. Here my code:

var express = require('express');
var request = require('request');
var bodyParser = require('body-parser');
var urlencodedParser = bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: false });
var fs = require("fs");
var app     = express();


app.get('/scrap/',function(req,res){
    res.render('start.ejs');

});

app.post('/scrap/result', urlencodedParser, function(req,res){

        var lista = req.body.lista;
        var phrase = req.body.phrase;        
        var l = lista.split('\n');
        var results = [];  // declaring results array       

        l.forEach(function(elem) {            

            request(elem, function(error, response, html) {

                try {
                if (html.indexOf(phrase) > 0) {
                var result = 'Phrase "' + phrase + '" found';
                }
                else {
                  var result = 'Phrase "' + phrase + '" not found';
                }                

              }
              catch(err) {
                var result = 'Error: '+ err.message;
              }
             results.push(result);             

             console.log(results) // here results array is filled with result

            });
           console.log(results); // results array is empty

        });  

         console.log(results); // results array is also empty

            res.render('result.ejs', { 
                  result : results[0],
                  phrase : phrase, 
            });     

}); 


app.use(function(req, res, next){
    res.redirect('/scrap');
});

app.listen(3000);

Answer 1

instead of a forEach use a map, and return an array of promises, then qait on all of them before providing the response.

var responsePromises = l.map(geturslResponsePromise)
q.all(responsePromises).then(function(results){
     res.render('result.ejs', { 
         result : results[0],
         phrase : phrase, 
     });     
})

Where geturslResponsePromise is somethign to the effect

var geturslResponsePromise = function(elem) {
   return new Promise(function(resolve, reject){

     request(elem, function(error, response, html) {
        try {
            if (html.indexOf(phrase) > 0) {
                resolve('Phrase "' + phrase + '" found');
            }
            else {
                resolve('Phrase "' + phrase + '" not found');
            }                
        }
        catch(err) {
            reject('Error: '+ err.message);
        }

    }) // request
   }) // promise
}

note: untested code, probably a ton of bugs, but that is the approach I would take with an ES5 based syntax

note2: I would also recommend more meaningful variable names. Things like Request, Responses, Url, Uri are fairly well known and understaood in the web space