Observables and fetching paged data? - rxjs

Question

I need to create an observable, which I can "pull" data from, to work with a pageable api. I can only fetch 100 items per request, I want to be able to use observable as a generator function (on which I can call .next() to issue a request to get next 100 items.
I can't unfortunately find a way to do it with Rx. I suppose it's possible using controlled observable or a subject. Can you guys show me an example.
this is what I've gotten so far:
function list(entityType, viewName, fetchAll = false) {
var skip = 0,
total = 0;
const subject = new Rx.Subject(),
response$ = subject
.takeWhile(() => skip <= total)
.startWith(skip)
.flatMap((skip) => fetchPagePromise(skip)),
next = () => subject.onNext(skip);
if (fetchAll) {
Rx.Observable.timer(100, 100).subscribe(() => next());
}
return {
data$: response$.map(response => response),
next: fetchAll === true ? undefined : next
};
function fetchPagePromise() {
let limit = 100,
obj = {
viewName, limit, skip
},
qs = objectToQueryString(obj);
return $http.get(`${apiBase}/api/data/${entityType}${qs}`).then((res) => {
total = res.data.Total;
skip += limit;
return res.data.Rows;
});
}
}
this kinda works like a generator. it returns an Observable and next handler. Whenever next is called it pulls next 100 items from api and pushes into the Observable. Also if there’s a third parameter fetchAll passed, then it will keep fetching data until there’s no more. What scares me though that there are 2 mutating vars in function's closure - skip and total, and I don't know if managing them like this in asynchronous/unpredictable environment is ok.

Answer 1

One of the things you generally want to avoid is trying to make Rx into a plain old event emitter. Usually it is an indicator when you try and just trigger Observables manually by passing around a Subjects observer interface.
You should ask yourself, where is my data coming from? What calls next(), what calls that, etc. After enough of these you will generally find that this will lead you to something that can be wrapped by an Observable directly rather than explicitly calling next(). Also, I think the fetchAll flag should really be kept externally. You are only making the interface confusing by essentially turning it into a void method just by passing in a flag.
So I would recommend refactoring like so:
Rx.Observable.prototype.lazyRequest = function(entityType, viewName, limit = 100) {
var source = this;
return Rx.Observable.create(obs => {
var response = source
//Skip is really just the (limit * index)
.map((x, i) => i * limit)
.flatMap((skip) => {
let obj = {viewName, skip, limit},
qs = objectToQueryString(obj);
//Handle promises implicitly
return $http.get(`${apiBase}/api/data/${entityType}${qs}`);
},
//Return this with our skip information
(skip, res) => {skip, res})
//Publish it so the stream get shared.
.publish();
//This will emit once once you are out of data
var stop = response.first(x => x.skip >= x.res.data.Total);
return new CompositeDisposable(
//Complete this stream when stop emits
response.takeUntil(stop)
//Downstream only cares about the data rows
.map(x => x.res.data.Rows)
.subscribe(obs),
//Hook everything up
response.connect());
});
}
Then you can use it like so:
//An example of a "starting point", a button click
//Update the rows every time a new event comes through
Rx.Observable.fromEvent($button, 'click')
.startWith(0) //Inject some data into the pipeline
.lazyRequest(entityType, viewName)
.subscribe(/*Do something with the returned rows*/);
//Get all of the rows, will keep hitting the endpoint until it completes
Rx.Observable.interval(100)
.lazyRequest(entityType, viewName)
//Gather all the values into an array and emit that.
.toArray()
.subscribe();