Angular2: convert array to Observable

I have a component that gets the data from a service via http, the problem is that I don't want to hit the API backend every time I show this component. I want my service to check if the data is in memory, if it is, return an observable with the array in memory, and if not, make the http request.

My component

import {Component, OnInit } from 'angular2/core';
import {Router} from 'angular2/router';

import {Contact} from './contact';
import {ContactService} from './contact.service';

@Component({
  selector: 'contacts',
  templateUrl: 'app/contacts/contacts.component.html'
})
export class ContactsComponent implements OnInit {
  
  contacts: Contact[];
  errorMessage: string;

  constructor(
    private router: Router,
    private contactService: ContactService) { }

  ngOnInit() {
    this.getContacts();
  }

  getContacts() {
    this.contactService.getContacts()
                       .subscribe(
                         contacts => this.contacts = contacts,
                         error =>  this.errorMessage = <any>error
                       );
  }
}

My service

import {Injectable} from 'angular2/core';
import {Http, Response, Headers, RequestOptions} from 'angular2/http';
import {Contact} from './contact';
import {Observable} from 'rxjs/Observable';

@Injectable()
export class ContactService {

  private contacts: Array<Contact> = null;

  constructor (private http: Http) {

  }

  getContacts() {
    // Check first if contacts == null
    // if not, return Observable(this.contacts)? <-- How to?

    return this.http.get(url)
                    .map(res => <Contact[]> res.json())
                    .do(contacts => {
                      this.contacts = contacts;
                      console.log(contacts);
                    }) // eyeball results in the console
                    .catch(this.handleError);
  }


  private handleError (error: Response) {
    // in a real world app, we may send the server to some remote logging infrastructure
    // instead of just logging it to the console
    console.error(error);
    return Observable.throw(error.json().error || 'Server error');
  }
}

You're right there. If you already have the data in memory, you can use of observable (equivalent of return/just in RxJS 4).

getContacts() {

	if(this.contacts != null) 
    {
		return Observable.of(this.contacts);
	} 
    else 
    {
		return this.http.get(url)
			.map(res => <Contact[]> res.json())
			.do(contacts => this.contacts = contacts)
			.catch(this.handleError);
	}
}

import { of } from 'rxjs';


return of(this.contacts);

Some people like me want it differently, which is from string[] into Observable<string>.

This is an example which involves the conversion:

import { from } from 'rxjs/observable/from';
import 'rxjs/add/operator/map';
import 'rxjs/add/operator/toArray';

const ids = ['x12', 'y81'];
let userUrls: string[];

from(ids) // Converting string[] into Observable<string>
  .map(id => 'http://localhost:8080/users/' + id)
  .toArray()
  .subscribe(urls => userUrls = urls);

Hopefully it will help some others.

In angular7 its enough to just put the of(). Whatever you put inside of() will be changed to observable. Here, this.contacts is converted to observable.

import { of } from 'rxjs'; 

getContacts() {

    if(this.contacts != null) 
    {
        return of(this.contacts);
    } 
}

Quick solution here:

getSomething():Observable<Object[]>{
    	return new Observable(observable => {
            this.http.get('example.com').subscribe(results => {
                observable.next(results.json());
                observable.complete();
            });
    	});
    }

This might be extremely late in coming, but I've been using sessionStorage pretty heavily to handle some of my work. If you lose state because people were bouncing around, you still have your data.

 getSubjects(): Observable<Subject[]> {
   
    let SubjectsString = sessionStorage.getItem("Subjects")

    if (SubjectsString) {
      let subjects: Subject[] = JSON.parse(SubjectsString);
      console.log("GETTING DATA FROM SESSION STORAGE")
      return Observable.of(subjects);
      
    } else {
      let url = `${this.apiHost}/api/subject`;
      return this.http.get(url)
        .map(res =>{          
    
          sessionStorage.setItem("Subjects",JSON.stringify(res.json()));           
          return res.json();
        })
      
      
    }

       
  }

In this example, I've got a class for Subject and a definition for apiHost, but the rest is pretty simple. You call the service for an observable. Your component has no idea where the data is and it doesn't care. The service checks local storage and, if it has it, converts it into an observable and returns it, if it doesn't, it goes and gets it, then saves it to local storage and then returns it.

In my case, I have some huge applications with hundreds of pages. Users might bounce from a nice new Angular4 page, over to a classic ASP age and back again multiple times. Having all menu items and even search results in sessionstorage has been a lifesaver.

You can also use Observable.of(resultArray);

from the import { Observable } from 'rxjs;' package