Async initialization of Angular 2 service

Question

I have an Angular 2 service that needs to do async work when it is initalized, and should not be usable before this initialization has been completed.

Answer 1

You could leverage an observable to do that with the flatMap operator. If the user isn't there, you could wait for it and then chain the target request.

Here is a sample:

@Injectable()
export class Api {
  private user;
  private storage;
  private userInitialized = new Subject();

  constructor(private http: Http) {
    this.storage = LocalStorage;
    this.storage.get('user').then(json => {
      if (json !== "") {
        this.user = JSON.parse(json);
        this.userInitialized.next(this.user);
      }
    });        
  }

  // one of many methods
  public getSomethingFromServer(): Observable<...> {
    // make a http request that depends on this.user
    if (this.user) {
      return this.http.get(...).map(...);
    } else {
      return this.userInitialized.flatMap((user) => {
        return this.http.get(...).map(...);
      });
    }
  }
}