Serial Execution in javascript

JavascriptSerialExecution

// Async task (same in all examples in this chapter)
function async(arg, callback) {
  console.log('do something with \''+arg+'\', return 1 sec later');
  setTimeout(function() { callback(arg * 2); }, 1000);
}
// Final task (same in all the examples)
function final() { console.log('Done', results); }

// A simple async series:
var items = [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ];
var results = [];
function series(item) {
  if(item) {
    async( item, function(result) {
      results.push(result);
      return series(items.shift());
    });
  } else {
    return final();
  }
}
series(items.shift());

From http://book.mixu.net/node/ch7.html