async/await implicitly returns promise?

Question

I read that async functions marked by the async keyword implicitly return a promise:

async function getVal(){
 return await doSomethingAync();
}         


        

Answer 1

Your question is: If I create an async function should it return a promise or not? Answer: just do whatever you want and Javascript will fix it for you.

Suppose doSomethingAsync is a function that returns a promise. Then

async function getVal(){
    return await doSomethingAsync();
}

is exactly the same as

async function getVal(){
    return doSomethingAsync();
}

You probably are thinking "WTF, how can these be the same?" and you are right. The async will magically wrap a value with a Promise if necessary.

Even stranger, the doSomethingAsync can be written to sometimes return a promise and sometimes NOT return a promise. Still both functions are exactly the same, because the await is also magic. It will unwrap a Promise if necessary but it will have no effect on things that are not Promises.