no-empty-function false positive

[EvgenyOrekhov]

Tell us about your environment

• ESLint Version: 6.8.0
• Node Version: 12.14.1
• npm Version: 6.13.4

What parser (default, Babel-ESLint, etc.) are you using?

default

Please show your full configuration:

Configuration

{
  "no-empty-function": ["error", { "allow": ["methods"] }]
}

What did you do? Please include the actual source code causing the issue, as well as the command that you used to run ESLint.

const object = {
  async method() {}
};

eslint .

What did you expect to happen?

No no-empty-function warnings.

What actually happened? Please include the actual, raw output from ESLint.

Unexpected empty async method 'method'. (no-empty-function)

Are you willing to submit a pull request to fix this bug?

Yes

[EvgenyOrekhov]

ESLint demo

[EvgenyOrekhov]

I can see in the source code that there is actually some code for handling async methods and functions. But it's basically dead code now. I guess one of the possible solutions would be to extend the ALLOW_OPTIONS array to include "asyncFunctions" and "asyncMethods". That way it would be an enhancement, I guess.

[kaicataldo]

Verified using our demo.

Given that we have a separate option for "generatorFunctions" and "generatorMethods", I personally think it makes sense to add "asyncFunctions" and "asyncMethods" as an option.

I'm not sure whether to mark this as a bug or an enhancement, since adding new options is an enhancement, but given the lack of these options, I think this should also be classified as a bug. 🤷‍♂

Either way, I support solving this by adding "allow": "asyncFunctions|asyncMethods" options. Let' see what the rest of the team has to say.

[mdjermanovic]

I also think this should be fixed in some way. There are also async arrow functions.

By the current implementation, it seems that async generator functions and async generator methods would be treated as just generator functions/generator methods? Looks like there could be an exponential growth of options if something new appears.

[eslint-deprecated]

Unfortunately, it looks like there wasn't enough interest from the team
or community to implement this change. While we wish we'd be able to
accommodate everyone's requests, we do need to prioritize. We've found
that issues failing to reach accepted status after 21 days tend to
never be accepted, and as such, we close those issues.
This doesn't mean the idea isn't interesting or useful, just that it's
not something the team can commit to.

Thanks for contributing to ESLint and we appreciate your understanding.

[kaicataldo]

On thinking about this more, this seems like a clear case of an unintentionally missing feature (it was probably implemented before async functions were added to the language). The rule definitely doesn't feel complete without it, so I'm marking as accepted. If anyone from the team disagrees, please let me know!