Skip to content

JavaScript Generators Tutorial

Generators are a special kind of function with the ability to pause itself, and resume later, allowing other code to run in the meantime.

Generators are a special kind of function with the ability to pause itself, and resume later, allowing other code to run in the meantime.

The code decides that it has to wait, so it lets other code “in the queue” to run, and keeps the right to resume its operations “when the thing it’s waiting for” is done.

All this is done with a single, simple keyword: yield. When a generator contains that keyword, the execution is halted.

A generator can contain many yield keywords, thus halting itself multiple times, and it’s identified by the *function keyword, which is not to be confused with the pointer dereference operator used in lower level programming languages such as C, C++ or Go.

Generators enable whole new paradigms of programming in JavaScript, allowing:

Here is an example of a generator which explains how it all works.

function *calculator(input) {
    var doubleThat = 2 * (yield (input / 2))
    var another = yield (doubleThat)
    return (input * doubleThat * another)
}

We initialize it with

const calc = calculator(10)

Then we start the iterator on our generator:

calc.next()

This first iteration starts the iterator. The code returns this object:

{
  done: false
  value: 5
}

What happens is: the code runs the function, with input = 10 as it was passed in the generator constructor. It runs until it reaches the yield, and returns the content of yield: input / 2 = 5. So we got a value of 5, and the indication that the iteration is not done (the function is just paused).

In the second iteration we pass the value 7:

calc.next(7)

and what we got back is:

{
  done: false
  value: 14
}

7 was placed as the value of doubleThat. Important: you might read like input / 2 was the argument, but that’s just the return value of the first iteration. We now skip that, and use the new input value, 7, and multiply it by 2.

We then reach the second yield, and that returns doubleThat, so the returned value is 14.

In the next, and last, iteration, we pass in 100

calc.next(100)

and in return we got

{
  done: true
  value: 14000
}

As the iteration is done (no more yield keywords found) and we just return (input * doubleThat * another) which amounts to 10 * 14 * 100.


→ Here's my latest YouTube video

→ Get my JavaScript Beginner's Handbook

→ I wrote 17 books to help you become a better developer, download them all at $0 cost by joining my newsletter

JOIN MY CODING BOOTCAMP, an amazing cohort course that will be a huge step up in your coding career - covering React, Next.js - next edition February 2025

Bootcamp 2025

Join the waiting list