I am trying to learn RxJS with websockets and Angular 4, and found a good example here. I'm hoping someone can help explain the example as a few things are confusing.
They have created 2 Angular services, the Websocket Service:
import { Injectable } from '@angular/core';
import * as Rx from 'rxjs/Rx';
@Injectable()
export class WebsocketService {
constructor() { }
private subject: Rx.Subject<MessageEvent>;
public connect(url): Rx.Subject<MessageEvent> {
if (!this.subject) {
this.subject = this.create(url);
console.log("Successfully connected: " + url);
}
return this.subject;
}
private create(url): Rx.Subject<MessageEvent> {
let ws = new WebSocket(url);
let observable = Rx.Observable.create(
(obs: Rx.Observer<MessageEvent>) => {
ws.onmessage = obs.next.bind(obs);
ws.onerror = obs.error.bind(obs);
ws.onclose = obs.complete.bind(obs);
return ws.close.bind(ws);
})
let observer = {
next: (data: Object) => {
if (ws.readyState === WebSocket.OPEN) {
ws.send(JSON.stringify(data));
}
}
}
return Rx.Subject.create(observer, observable);
}
}
and the Chat service:
import { Injectable } from '@angular/core';
import { Observable, Subject } from 'rxjs/Rx';
import { WebsocketService } from './websocket.service';
const CHAT_URL = 'ws://echo.websocket.org/';
export interface Message {
author: string,
message: string
}
@Injectable()
export class ChatService {
public messages: Subject<Message>;
constructor(wsService: WebsocketService) {
this.messages = <Subject<Message>>wsService
.connect(CHAT_URL)
.map((response: MessageEvent): Message => {
let data = JSON.parse(response.data);
return {
author: data.author,
message: data.message
}
});
}
}
I've got a number of questions about this:
- Why is it necessary to create 2 services? Can't a Subject be an observer and observable (so it could just relay the messages directly without a second Chat service)? What problem does is solve creating 2 services?
- In the Websocket Service, why does the last line of the .create function call return ws.close.bind(ws)? What does that do?
- How is a disconnect of the websocket handled? Is there a way to make it reconnect?
- How should the services close/dispose of the websocket?