How to create an Observable from static data similar to http one in Angular?

I am having a service that has this method:

export class TestModelService {

    public testModel: TestModel;

	constructor( @Inject(Http) public http: Http) {
    }
    
    public fetchModel(uuid: string = undefined): Observable<string> {
    	if(!uuid) {
			//return Observable of JSON.stringify(new TestModel());
    	}
    	else {
			return this.http.get("http://localhost:8080/myapp/api/model/" + uuid)
				.map(res => res.text());
    	}
    }
}

in the component's constructor I am subscribing like this:

export class MyComponent {
   testModel: TestModel;
   testModelService: TestModelService;

   constructor(@Inject(TestModelService) testModelService) {
      this.testModelService = testModelService;

      testService.fetchModel("29f4fddc-155a-4f26-9db6-5a431ecd5d44").subscribe(
          data => { this.testModel = FactModel.fromJson(JSON.parse(data)); },
          err => console.log(err)
      );
   }
}

This works if an object comes from the server but I am trying to create an observable that will work with the given subscribe() call for a static string (this happens when testModelService.fetchModel() does not receive an uuid) so there is seamless handling in both cases.

Perhaps you could try to use the of method of the Observable class:

import { Observable } from 'rxjs/Observable';
import 'rxjs/add/observable/of';

public fetchModel(uuid: string = undefined): Observable<string> {
  if(!uuid) {
    return Observable.of(new TestModel()).map(o => JSON.stringify(o));
  }
  else {
    return this.http.get("http://localhost:8080/myapp/api/model/" + uuid)
            .map(res => res.text());
  }
}

As of July 2018 and the release of RxJS 6, the new way to get an Observable from a value is to import the of operator like so:

import { of } from 'rxjs';

and then create the observable from the value, like so:

of(someValue);

Note, that you used to have to do Observable.of(someValue) like in the currently accepted answer. There is a good article on the other RxJS 6 changes here.

Things seem to have changed since Angular 2.0.0

import { Observable } from 'rxjs/Observable';
import { Subscriber } from 'rxjs/Subscriber';
// ...
public fetchModel(uuid: string = undefined): Observable<string> {
  if(!uuid) {
    return new Observable<TestModel>((subscriber: Subscriber<TestModel>) => subscriber.next(new TestModel())).map(o => JSON.stringify(o));
  }
  else {
    return this.http.get("http://localhost:8080/myapp/api/model/" + uuid)
            .map(res => res.text());
  }
}

The .next() function will be called on your subscriber.

This is how you can create a simple observable for static data.

let observable = Observable.create(observer => {
  setTimeout(() => {
    let users = [
      {username:"balwant.padwal",city:"pune"},
      {username:"test",city:"mumbai"}]

    observer.next(users); // This method same as resolve() method from Angular 1
    console.log("am done");
    observer.complete();//to show we are done with our processing
    // observer.error(new Error("error message"));
  }, 2000);
    
})

to subscribe to it is very easy
    
observable.subscribe((data)=>{
  console.log(data); // users array display
});

I hope this answer is helpful. We can use HTTP call instead static data.

This way you can create Observable from data, in my case I need to maintain shopping cart:

service.ts

export class OrderService {
    cartItems: BehaviorSubject<Array<any>> = new BehaviorSubject([]);
    cartItems$ = this.cartItems.asObservable();

    // I need to maintain cart, so add items in cart

    addCartData(data) {
        const currentValue = this.cartItems.value; // get current items in cart
        const updatedValue = [...currentValue, data]; // push new item in cart
    
        if(updatedValue.length) {
          this.cartItems.next(updatedValue); // notify to all subscribers
        }
      }
}

Component.ts

export class CartViewComponent implements OnInit {
    cartProductList: any = [];
    constructor(
        private order: OrderService
    ) { }

    ngOnInit() {
        this.order.cartItems$.subscribe(items => {
            this.cartProductList = items;
        });
    }
}

As of May 2021 the new way to get an Observable from a value is:

importing:

import "rxjs/add/observable/of"
import { Observable } from "rxjs/Observable"

and using, like so::

Observable.of(your_value)