The Promise.new constructor builds a new promise. The status of it can be read using the status method. Before any other actions are done with the promise, its status remains to be Planned.
my $p = Promise.new; say $p.status; # Planned
When the promise is kept, call the keep method to update the status to the value of Kept.
my $p = Promise.new; $p.keep; say $p.status; # Kept
Alternatively, to break the promise, call the break method and set the status of the promise to Broken.
my $p = Promise.new; say $p.status; # Planned $p.break; say $p.status; # Broken
Instead of asking for a status, the whole promise object can be converted to a Boolean value. There is the Bool method for that; alternatively, the unary operator ? can be used instead.
say $p.Bool; say ?$p;
Keep in mind that as a Boolean value can only take one of the two possible states, the result of the Boolean typecast is not a full replacement for the status method.
There is another method for getting a result called result. It returns truth if the promise has been kept.
my $p = Promise.new; $p.keep; say $p.result; # True
Be careful. If the promise is not kept at the moment the result is called, the programme will be blocked until the promise is not in the Planned status anymore.
In the case of the broken promise, the call of result throws an exception.
my $p = Promise.new; $p.break; say $p.result;
Run this programme and get the exception details in the console.
Tried to get the result of a broken Promise
To avoid quitting the programme under an exception, surround the code with the try block (but be ready to lose the result of say—it will not appear on the screen).
my $p = Promise.new;
$p.break;
try {
say $p.result;
}
The cause method, when called instead of the result, will explain the details for the broken promise. The method cannot be called on the kept promise:
Can only call cause on a broken promise (status: Kept)
Like with exceptions, both kept and broken promises can be attributed to a message or an object. In this case, the result will return that message instead of a bare True or False.
This is how a message is passed for the kept promise:
my $p = Promise.new;
$p.keep('All done');
say $p.status; # Kept
say $p.result; # All done
This is how it works with the broken promise:
my $p = Promise.new;
$p.break('Timeout');
say $p.status; # Broken
say $p.cause; # Timeout