await dbRef.set({codeVerifier, state}). SyntaxError: await is only valid in async functions and the top level bodies of modules

Question

I am having the following application that should authorize with twitter and i am using Firestore. I am using nodejs and the problem i am having is when i am using await in onRequest that should return a response and the set the values to a firestore database. Below is my code


const functions = require("firebase-functions");

const admin = require("firebase-admin");
admin.initializeApp();

const dbRef = admin.firestore().doc("tokens/demo");

const TwitterApi = require("twitter-api-v2").default;

const twitterClient = new TwitterApi({
  clientId: "",
  clientSecret: "",
});

const callBackUrl = "http://127.0.0.1:5000/lucembot/us-central1/callback";

exports.auth = functions.https.onRequest((request, response) => {
  const {url, codeVerifier, state} = twitterClient.generateOAuth2AuthLink(callBackUrl, {
    scope: ["tweet.read", "tweet.write", "users.read", "offline.access"],
  });

  await dbRef.set({codeVerifier, state});

  response.redirect(url);
});

exports.callback = functions.https.onRequest((request, response) => {});

exports.tweet = functions.https.onRequest((request, response) => {});

I am getting below error


await dbRef.set({codeVerifier, state});
  ^^^^^

SyntaxError: await is only valid in async functions and the top level bodies of modules
    at Object.compileFunction (node:vm:352:18)
    at wrapSafe (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1026:15)
    at Module._compile (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1061:27)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1151:10)
    at Module.load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:975:32)
    at Function.Module._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:822:12)
    at Function.executeUserEntryPoint [as runMain] (node:internal/modules/run_main:77:12)
    at node:internal/main/run_main_module:17:47

Node.js v17.6.0

@Emmanuel I posted an answer below, please see if that solves your issue. — Priyashree Bhadra, Mar 03 '22 at 06:23

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Mar 01 '22 at 07:38

Usually await works on functions that return a promise, not on functions that return the request object and expect you to use callbacks or event listeners to know when things are done. Usually, I would recommend you to use the request-promise module.

But since request-promise has been deprecated, here are other options that don't depend on the NPM request package. got has been mentioned already, but it depends on 11 other packages.

axios, in contrast, only has 1 dependency (for redirects). Everything else is natively implemented and built on top of the native NodeJS packages.

Here is an example using axios:

const axios = require('axios')
const response = await axios.get(callbackUrl)
const result = response.data

or, as a one-liner in JavaScript

const result = (await axios.get(callbackUrl)).data

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 02 '22 at 12:13

The top-level await means that you are trying to use async/await syntax outside the async function. You can run the await statement under the async function.

So, you have to write your:

 functions.https.onRequest( (request, response) => { 
 
 as
 
 functions.https.onRequest( async (request, response) => {

For more details. check here.

await dbRef.set({codeVerifier, state}). SyntaxError: await is only valid in async functions and the top level bodies of modules

2 Answers2