RxJS sequence equivalent to promise.then()?

Question

I used to develop a lot with promise and now I am moving to RxJS. The doc of RxJS doesn\'t provide a very clear example on how to move from promise chain to observer sequenc

Answer 1

if getPromise function is in a middle of a stream pipe you should simple wrap it into one of functions mergeMap, switchMap or concatMap (usually mergeMap):

stream$.pipe(
   mergeMap(data => getPromise(data)),
   filter(...),
   map(...)
 ).subscribe(...);

if you want to start your stream with getPromise() then wrap it into from function:

import {from} from 'rxjs';

from(getPromise()).pipe(
   filter(...)
   map(...)
).subscribe(...);

Answer 2

Update May 2019, using RxJs 6

Agree with the provided answers above, wished to add a concrete example with some toy data & simple promises (with setTimeout) using RxJs v6 to add clarity.

Just update the passed id (currently hard-coded as 1) to something that does not exist to execute the error handling logic too. Importantly, also note the use of of with catchError message.

import { from as fromPromise, of } from "rxjs";
import { catchError, flatMap, tap } from "rxjs/operators";

const posts = [
  { title: "I love JavaScript", author: "Wes Bos", id: 1 },
  { title: "CSS!", author: "Chris Coyier", id: 2 },
  { title: "Dev tools tricks", author: "Addy Osmani", id: 3 }
];

const authors = [
  { name: "Wes Bos", twitter: "@wesbos", bio: "Canadian Developer" },
  {
    name: "Chris Coyier",
    twitter: "@chriscoyier",
    bio: "CSS Tricks and CodePen"
  },
  { name: "Addy Osmani", twitter: "@addyosmani", bio: "Googler" }
];

function getPostById(id) {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    setTimeout(() => {
      const post = posts.find(post => post.id === id);
      if (post) {
        console.log("ok, post found!");
        resolve(post);
      } else {
        reject(Error("Post not found!"));
      }
    }, 200);
  });
}

function hydrateAuthor(post) {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    setTimeout(() => {
      const authorDetails = authors.find(person => person.name === post.author);
      if (authorDetails) {
        post.author = authorDetails;
        console.log("ok, post hydrated with author info");
        resolve(post);
      } else {
        reject(Error("Author not Found!"));
      }
    }, 200);
  });
}

function dehydratePostTitle(post) {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    setTimeout(() => {
      delete post.title;
      console.log("ok, applied transformation to remove title");
      resolve(post);
    }, 200);
  });
}

// ok, here is how it looks regarding this question..
let source$ = fromPromise(getPostById(1)).pipe(
  flatMap(post => {
    return hydrateAuthor(post);
  }),
  flatMap(post => {
    return dehydratePostTitle(post);
  }),
  catchError(error => of(`Caught error: ${error}`))
);

source$.subscribe(console.log);

Output Data:

ok, post found!
ok, post hydrated with author info
ok, applied transformation to remove title
{ author:
   { name: 'Wes Bos',
     twitter: '@wesbos',
     bio: 'Canadian Developer' },
  id: 1 }

The key part, is equivalent to the following using plain promise control flow:

getPostById(1)
  .then(post => {
    return hydrateAuthor(post);
  })
  .then(post => {
    return dehydratePostTitle(post);
  })
  .then(author => {
    console.log(author);
  })
  .catch(err => {
    console.error(err);
  });