With Flutter/Dart How should I query data that doesn't build a widget? - flutter

Question

I'm working on an app and I'm relatively new to this scene, but I'm running into some troubles when I'm looking to simply query some data.
I'm calling a function after someone logs in. The login function only sends the necessary information and I want to do a secondary ping to my server to get a little more user information, more than just verifying the login info.
getUser (userid) async{
List<Map<String, dynamic>> user=[] ;
var client = new http.Client();
try {
var req = await client.post(urlPath+'mobileGetUser', body: {'thisUserID': userid'});
var jsonResponse = convert.jsonDecode(req.body);
//print('Here: '+jsonResponse.toString());
var id = jsonResponse['id'] ?? '';
var joinDate = jsonResponse['joinDate'] ?? '';
var userEmail = jsonResponse['userEmail'] ?? '';
var displayName = jsonResponse['displayName'] ?? '';
var timezone = jsonResponse['timezone'] ?? '';
var verified = jsonResponse['verified'] ?? '';
user = [{'id': id}];
user = [{'joinDate': joinDate}];
user = [{'userEmail': userEmail}];
user = [{'displayName': displayName}];
user = [{'timezone': timezone}];
user = [{'verified': verified}];
return user
} finally {
client.close();
}
}
I'm used to working in PHP. In that language, I'd pass the JSON object or associative array back to the calling function and accessing the individual fields would be as simple as
$displayName = $user['displayName'];
But this isn't PHP. List types are a little strange to me still.
From my calling function, I try to test this with:
thisUser = getUser(userid);
print('Successful Login: Display name: '+thisUser.toString());
And I get a message of:
Successful Login: Display name: Instance of 'Future<dynamic>'
How can I access this data? I've tried a few ways to get it. Also, is there a better way to create my List? I'm definitely going through a few steps that feel unnecessary. I'm honestly like to just pass it the entire JSONresponse. I'm just a bit out of my depth.

Answer 1

You could do this:
thisUser = await getUser(userid);
print('after'); // this will print after getUser() finishes
If you don't await for getUser() to finish, then you'll receive a Future.
Another way would be to use that Future and add a listener to it, like this:
getUser(userid).then((value) {
print('after'); // this will print after getUser() finishes
thisUser = value;
});
print('before'); // this will print before getUser() finishes
This is assuming you aren't using this on widgets. Otherwise you could use FutureBuilder to detect when the Future finishes and show something.