Javascript Web3 get the account balance promise / async trouble

Question

I am having difficulty wrapping my head around how to just get the balance:

// Testing:
const address1 = "0xA5...";

var balance1 = web3.eth.getBalance(address1);
console.log(balance1);
balance2 = 0;
balance2 = web3.eth.getBalance(address1, (err, wei) => { balance = web3.utils.fromWei(wei, 'ether'); return balance; });
console.log(balance2);

But I only get back "promises":

Promise { <pending> }
Promise { <pending> }

How do I get back these variable values at the "top level" of my code? Or does everything need to be wrapped in an async function somehow? Quite confused... any help appreciated.

Answer 1

// Testing:
const address1 = "0xA5...";

var balance1 = await web3.eth.getBalance(address1);
console.log(balance1);
var balance2 = await web3.utils.fromWei(await web3.eth.getBalance(address1))
console.log(balance2);

since web3 calls are mostly async / return promises.

Edit: If you're using await in a function, your outer function needs to be declared as async.

const address1 = "0xA5...";

const logBalance = async () => {
    var balance1 = await web3.eth.getBalance(address1);
    console.log(balance1);
};

await logBalance();

Or use promises (this runs asynchronously)

web3.eth.getBalance(address1).then(console.log);