How do you consume a pending Promise?

[ghost]

Apologies for my basic understanding of Promises, but I tried and these code doesn't work and I tried searching for solutions for understanding how should I consume Promises, and none worked.
Node.js v16.5.0. Ethers.js 5.4.1

var ethers = require("ethers");
var url = "wss://bsc-ws-node.nariox.org:443";

const provider = new ethers.providers.WebSocketProvider(url);

const blockNumber = async function() {
    return await provider.getBlockNumber();
}

console.log(blockNumber());

This outputs Promise { <pending> }

var ethers = require("ethers");
var url = "wss://bsc-ws-node.nariox.org:443";

const provider = new ethers.providers.WebSocketProvider(url);

async function blockNumber() {
    const blockNumber = await provider.getBlockNumber();
    return blockNumber();
}

blockNumber().then(data => {console.log(data)});

This outputs `` nothing on the console!

Just as a sanity check:

>./geth attach wss://bsc-ws-node.nariox.org:443
Welcome to the Geth JavaScript console!

instance: Geth/v1.1.0-beta-032970b2/linux-amd64/go1.16.4
at block: 9380974 (Thu Jul 22 2021 21:39:44 GMT+0800 (+08))
 modules: eth:1.0 net:1.0 rpc:1.0 web3:1.0

To exit, press ctrl-d
> eth.blockNumber
9380976
> exit

[ricmoo]

You should check out this documentation to learn more about Promises. A lot of ethers returns Promises, so becoming more familiar with Promises will help you a lot, as well as for JavaScript programming in general.

You can use something akin to an async IIFE:

const ethers = require("ethers");
const url = "wss://bsc-ws-node.nariox.org:443";

const provider = new ethers.providers.WebSocketProvider(url);

// async IIFE
(async function() {
  const blockNumber = await provider.getBlockNumber();
  console.log(blockNumber);
})();

One other quick suggestion, avoid using var and instead use let and const. They will save a lot of headaches down the road. :)

Hope that helps. :)