What is the correct way to share the result of an Angular Http network call in RxJs 5?

Question

By using Http, we call a method that does a network call and returns an http observable:

getCustomer() {
    return          


        

Answer 1

I wrote a cache class,

/**
 * Caches results returned from given fetcher callback for given key,
 * up to maxItems results, deletes the oldest results when full (FIFO).
 */
export class StaticCache
{
    static cachedData: Map = new Map();
    static maxItems: number = 400;

    static get(key: string){
        return this.cachedData.get(key);
    }

    static getOrFetch(key: string, fetcher: (string) => any): any {
        let value = this.cachedData.get(key);

        if (value != null){
            console.log("Cache HIT! (fetcher)");
            return value;
        }

        console.log("Cache MISS... (fetcher)");
        value = fetcher(key);
        this.add(key, value);
        return value;
    }

    static add(key, value){
        this.cachedData.set(key, value);
        this.deleteOverflowing();
    }

    static deleteOverflowing(): void {
        if (this.cachedData.size > this.maxItems) {
            this.deleteOldest(this.cachedData.size - this.maxItems);
        }
    }

    /// A Map object iterates its elements in insertion order — a for...of loop returns an array of [key, value] for each iteration.
    /// However that seems not to work. Trying with forEach.
    static deleteOldest(howMany: number): void {
        //console.debug("Deleting oldest " + howMany + " of " + this.cachedData.size);
        let iterKeys = this.cachedData.keys();
        let item: IteratorResult;
        while (howMany-- > 0 && (item = iterKeys.next(), !item.done)){
            //console.debug("    Deleting: " + item.value);
            this.cachedData.delete(item.value); // Deleting while iterating should be ok in JS.
        }
    }

    static clear(): void {
        this.cachedData = new Map();
    }

}

It's all static because of how we use it, but feel free to make it a normal class and a service. I'm not sure if angular keeps a single instance for the whole time though (new to Angular2).

And this is how I use it:

            let httpService: Http = this.http;
            function fetcher(url: string): Observable {
                console.log("    Fetching URL: " + url);
                return httpService.get(url).map((response: Response) => {
                    if (!response) return null;
                    if (typeof response.json() !== "array")
                        throw new Error("Graph REST should return an array of vertices.");
                    let items: any[] = graphService.fromJSONarray(response.json(), httpService);
                    return array ? items : items[0];
                });
            }

            // If data is a link, return a result of a service call.
            if (this.data[verticesLabel][name]["link"] || this.data[verticesLabel][name]["_type"] == "link")
            {
                // Make an HTTP call.
                let url = this.data[verticesLabel][name]["link"];
                let cachedObservable: Observable = StaticCache.getOrFetch(url, fetcher);
                if (!cachedObservable)
                    throw new Error("Failed loading link: " + url);
                return cachedObservable;
            }

I assume there could be a more clever way, which would use some Observable tricks but this was just fine for my purposes.