Create an Rx.Subject using Subject.create that allows onNext without subscription - rxjs

Question

When creating an Rx.Subject using Subject.create(observer, observable), the Subject is so lazy. When I try to use subject.onNext without having a subscription, it doesn't pass messages on. If I subject.subscribe() first, I can use onNext immediately after.
Let's say I have an Observer, created like so:
function createObserver(socket) {
return Observer.create(msg => {
socket.send(msg);
}, err => {
console.error(err);
}, () => {
socket.removeAllListeners();
socket.close();
});
}
Then, I create an Observable that accepts messages:
function createObservable(socket) {
return Observable.fromEvent(socket, 'message')
.map(msg => {
// Trim out unnecessary data for subscribers
delete msg.blobs;
// Deep freeze the message
Object.freeze(msg);
return msg;
})
.publish()
.refCount();
}
The subject is created using these two functions.
observer = createObserver(socket);
observable = createObservable(socket);
subject = Subject.create(observer, observable);
With this setup, I'm not able to subject.onNext immediately (even if I don't care about subscribing). Is this by design? What's a good workaround?
These are actually TCP sockets, which is why I haven't relied on the super slick websocket subjects.

Answer 1

The basic solution, caching nexts before subscription with ReplaySubject:
I think all you wanted to do is use a ReplaySubject as your observer.
const { Observable, Subject, ReplaySubject } = Rx;
const replay = new ReplaySubject();
const observable = Observable.create(observer => {
replay.subscribe(observer);
});
const mySubject = Subject.create(replay, observable);
mySubject.onNext(1);
mySubject.onNext(2);
mySubject.onNext(3);
mySubject.subscribe(x => console.log(x));
mySubject.onNext(4);
mySubject.onNext(5);
Results in:
1
2
3
4
5
A socket implementation (example, don't use)
... but if you're looking at doing a Socket implementation, it gets a lot more complicated. Here is a working socket implementation, but I don't recommend you use it. Rather, I'd suggest that you use one of the community supported implementations either in rxjs-dom (if you're an RxJS 4 or lower) or as part of RxJS 5, both of which I've helped work on.
function createSocketSubject(url) {
let replay = new ReplaySubject();
let socket;
const observable = Observable.create(observer => {
socket = new WebSocket(url);
socket.onmessage = (e) => {
observer.onNext(e);
};
socket.onerror = (e) => {
observer.onError(e);
};
socket.onclose = (e) => {
if (e.wasClean) {
observer.onCompleted();
} else {
observer.onError(e);
}
}
let sub;
socket.onopen = () => {
sub = replay.subscribe(x => socket.send(x));
};
return () => {
socket && socket.readyState === 1 && socket.close();
sub && sub.dispose();
}
});
return Subject.create(replay, observable);
}
const socket = createSocketSubject('ws://echo.websocket.org');
socket.onNext('one');
socket.onNext('two');
socket.subscribe(x => console.log('response: ' + x.data));
socket.onNext('three');
socket.onNext('four');
Here's the obligatory JsBin