Error thrown: 'await' outside async function

[Waldorf-Techie]

The following program, which works in Glowscript:
https://flaskdstorehost-dhppn6xgeq-uc.a.run.app/#/user/HG_NY/folder/Bezier/program/BezierMeta/edit

Throws the following error in the Alpha testing:

Error:PythonError: Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/lib/python312.zip/_pyodide/_base.py", line 606, in eval_code_async
.compile()
^^^^^^^^^
File "/lib/python312.zip/_pyodide/_base.py", line 297, in compile
self._gen.send(self.ast)
File "/lib/python312.zip/_pyodide/_base.py", line 166, in _parse_and_compile_gen
return compile(mod, filename, mode, flags, dont_inherit, optimize)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "", line 50
SyntaxError: 'await' outside async function

[rishitnanda]

Hello! I believe the error you are encountering is that sleep() in Web VPython doesn't behave like in standard Python. Instead, you can use await asyncio.sleep() inside an async function.

Lmk if that makes sense!

[Waldorf-Techie]

Thanks for the suggestion. My program has no explicit calls to the sleep function, however, so if this is the problem, then these calls are being added by the WASM processing and outside my control.

[sspickle]

The issue is that rate() is an async function. The entire program is run asynchronously and the pre-processor looks for calls to the rate() function and pre-pends them with await to make the compiler happy. However, if you call rate() from within a function, that function also needs to be declared as asynchronous, like so:

Web VPython (non WASM) fixed this by having a pre-processor that forced all functions to be async and awaited all functions, regardless. I'm hoping to avoid that with WASM, but I also don't want novice programmers to have to worry about writing asynchronous code. Let's say it's a known issue that we'll have to deal with one way or the other.

BTW, I do believe there is a call to sleep in your program.

[Waldorf-Techie]

Could the preprocessor detect whether a function has a call to rate (or sleep), and force just those functions to be async?

P.S. You're right about the one call to sleep.