Is there a way to use previous answers in inquirer when presenting a prompt (inquirer v6)?

Question

So what I want to do is use a previous answer when asking a question further down the line. Basically so that I can show a summary of what will be created and ask for a verification.

this.prompt([   
    {
      type: 'input',
      name: 'name',
      message: 'What is your name?'
      default: 'Jake'
    },
    {
      type: 'confirm',
      name: 'summary',
      message: 'Is this information correct? Your name is:' + answers.name',
    }

is there an easy way to achieve this? Or another way to achieve a summary type thing that lists out all previous answers?

For the version 9.x, the answer is at https://github.com/SBoudrias/Inquirer.js#ask-a-question-conditionally — koppor, Jul 14 '23 at 13:17

score 7 · Answer 1 · 2019-06-25T23:27:10.527

7

Either nest inquirer calls:

inquirer
  .prompt({
    type: 'list',
    name: 'chocolate',
    message: "What's your favorite chocolate?",
    choices: ['Mars', 'Oh Henry', 'Hershey']
  })
  .then(() => {
    inquirer.prompt({
      type: 'list',
      name: 'beverage',
      message: 'And your favorite beverage?',
      choices: ['Pepsi', 'Coke', '7up', 'Mountain Dew', 'Red Bull']
    });
  });

Or use the when function.

{
  type: 'confirm',
  name: 'summary',
  message: 'Is this information correct? Your name is:' + answers.name,
  when: function( answers ) {
    // Only run if user set a name
    return !!answers.name;
  },
}

edited Jun 25 '19 at 23:27

answered Jul 29 '18 at 22:55

3

I think the second option will result in an `answers is not defined` error. – Ogen Jul 04 '19 at 22:28
1

No, this should contain the results of the given answers so far as the `when` is called afterwards and the first param are the given answers. You can call it however you want to. It is like `deferred` / `.then()` in jQuery. See https://github.com/SBoudrias/Inquirer.js/blob/master/packages/inquirer/examples/when.js#L18 – Jul 05 '19 at 04:25
2

@DanielRuf I have given the second option a try but I do not seem to be able to access answers outside of the when function. I have also gone to the link and also to https://github.com/SBoudrias/Inquirer.js/, and it seems that these examples are only using the when as a bool and not to pass the 'answers' value back to the prompt code eg. as answers.name in message above. I am not sure whether this is because the code/material has changed since your post. Would you be able to advise whether this is still possible? – jwwnz Sep 24 '19 at 02:55
Generally it should work. The answers are all available in `answers`. The `when` is just a conditional to run the prompt in the case the return value is true. – Sep 24 '19 at 04:10
1

The first option returns `Hershey [PLOP] No generator found in plopfile`. The second one returns `answers is not defined`. – Karma Blackshaw Apr 02 '20 at 06:36
1

Well, the API may have changed in inquirer 7. See https://www.npmjs.com/package/inquirer/v/6.5.1 for the docs for version 6. The question and answer were for inquirer 6. – Apr 02 '20 at 08:32
1

For v7 please check the examples at https://www.npmjs.com/package/inquirer/v/7.1.0#examples – Apr 02 '20 at 08:33
Hi @DanielRuf, [this](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/60988125/async-operations-in-plopjs) my setup currently. I am using async await but failed and moved to .then but still failed. Do you have any idea as to why and how to fix this? – Karma Blackshaw Apr 02 '20 at 12:46

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 27 '20 at 00:36

As far as I am concerned Daniel's answer does not work for inquirer 7. A workaround could be splitting the big prompt into several, and wrapping them using an anonymous async function. This will always be safe.

const inquirer = require("inquirer");

(async () => {
  const ans1 = await inquirer.prompt([
    {
      type: "input",
      name: "name",
      message: "What is your name?",
      default: "Jake",
    },
  ]);
  const ans2 = await inquirer.prompt([
    {
      type: "confirm",
      name: "summary",
      message: "Is this information correct? Your name is:" + ans1.name,
    },
  ]);
  return { ...ans1, ...ans2 };
})()
  .then(console.log)
  .catch(console.error);

This will log:

{ name: 'Foo bar', summary: true }

Works great! Thank you. Borrowing from what you posted, I am posting my implementation below. — bananaforscale, Sep 16 '20 at 18:45
If you look closely the question was / is about v6 ;-) Since 2018 there were several new releases. So for usre my answer does not work with v7 maybe but the answer from me could be updated to make this clear instead of creating multiple answers. At the time of asking, my answer was the correct one. =) — , Oct 10 '21 at 10:32

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 21 '21 at 20:14

I am a little bit late to the party, but came across this question while searching for a solution to do exactly this. To be complete, in version 7 it is possible to pass a function to the message property, that gets the answers like so:

inquirer
  .prompt([
    {
      type: "input",
      name: "name",
      message: "What is your name?",
    },
    {
      type: "list",
      name: "food",
      message: (answers) => `What would you like to eat ${answers.name}?`,
      choices: ["Hotdogs", "Pizza"],
    },
  ])
  .then((answers) =>
    console.log(`Enjoy your ${answers.food}, ${answers.name}!`)
  );

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 16 '20 at 18:58

const run = async () => {
  try {
    const ans1 = await inquirer.prompt([
      {},
    ]);

    const ans2 = await inquirer.prompt([
      {},
    ]);

    return { ...ans1, ...ans2 };

    inquirer.prompt([]);

  } catch (err) {
    if (err) {
      switch (err.status) {
        case 401:
          console.log('401');
          break;
        default:
          console.log(err);
      }
    }
  }
};

run();

Is there a way to use previous answers in inquirer when presenting a prompt (inquirer v6)?

4 Answers4

Linked