Does anyone know an elegant way of making this function return the correct value?
It is meant to return 1, since there is one entry of "g_sampleSettingChildName".

Code:

function getNumBookmarkFolders()
{
	log('getNumBookmarkFolders() Begin');
	var numBookmarkFolders = -1;
	chrome.bookmarks.search(g_sampleSettingChildName, function(results)
	{
		log('callback function begin');
		numBookmarkFolders = results.length;
		log("If we returned here: "+numBookmarkFolders);
		return numBookmarkFolders;
        });
	log('getNumBookmarkFolders() End');
	log("getNumBookmarkFolders() returning: "+numBookmarkFolders);
	return numBookmarkFolders;
}

I click on a button:

Code:

<input id="debugShowNumBookmarkFolders" type="button" value="debugShowNumBookmarkFolders" onclick="alert(window.opener.getNumBookmarkFolders());" />

It shows:

getNumBookmarkFolders() Begin
getNumBookmarkFolders() End
getNumBookmarkFolders() returning: -1
callback function begin
If we returned here: 1

And displays -1 in the alert box. As you can see the getNumBookmarkFolders() function exits before the callback has finished. Is there an elegant way of making getNumBookmarkFolders() wait until the callback has finished?

Changing to this:

Code:

function getNumBookmarkFolders()
{
	var callbackFinished = false;
	log('getNumBookmarkFolders() Begin');
	var numBookmarkFolders = -1;
	chrome.bookmarks.search(g_sampleSettingChildName, function(results)
		{
			log('callback function begin');
			numBookmarkFolders = results.length;
			log("If we returned here: "+numBookmarkFolders);
			callbackFinished = true;
        });
	while (!callbackFinished)
	{
		; //maybe sleep?
	}
	log('getNumBookmarkFolders() End');
	log("getNumBookmarkFolders() returning: "+numBookmarkFolders);
	return numBookmarkFolders;
}

Just displays:
getNumBookmarkFolders() Begin

And gets stuck in an infinite loop. The callback never gets executed.
The only way I know of is to nest whatever you want to happen "after" the callback inside the callback (eg you can even pass in a function pointer). Is there some way of waiting for a callback to finish?

This is an example of callback chaining:

function getNumBookmarkFolders(afterGetNumBookmarkFolders)
{
var numBookmarkFolders = -1;
chrome.bookmarks.search(g_sampleSettingChildName, function(results)
{
numBookmarkFolders = results.length;
afterGetNumBookmarkFolders(numBookmarkFolders);
});
}

function afterGetNumBookmarkFolders(numBookmarkFolders)
{
alert(numBookmarkFolders);
}

<input id="debugShowNumBookmarkFolders" type="button" value="debugShowNumBookmarkFolders" onclick="window.opener.getNumBookmarkFolders(afterGetNumBookmarkFolders);" />

I'd prefer to be able to do "var num = getNumBookmarkFolders();". Is that even possible?