Angular 2 return data from RxJs subscribe

Question

I've a service with an authenticate function -

authenticate(username: string, password: string) {
        let ret;
        let packet = JSON.stringify({
            username: username,
            password: password
        });

        let headers = new Headers();
        headers.append('Content-Type', 'application/json');

        this.http.post('http://localhost:5000/api/authenticate/', packet, {
            headers: headers
        })
        .map(res => res.json())
        .subscribe(
            data => { 
                // put return data into ret
                ret = data.token;
            },
            err => console.log(err),
            () => {
                // this works!
                console.log(ret);
            }
        );

        // get's returned before I put data into it
        return ret;
    }

So if I call the authenticate function console.log(authenticate('a', 'b'));, it logs undefined since the ret variable is returned before the subscribe function can put the data into it. How can I return the http response data from authenticate function? I've never done any reactive programming with RxJS before and that's what angular 2 seems to be using.

PS. Is there any decent CSP solution for javascript like go channels or core.async?

Answer 1

I used Observables and Observers to build my solution. Since @Injectable creates a singleton class, I declared an Observable inside of it which I then exposed to my component. When I put any data into it, all subscribers get notified of the event. Warning: if you use this with zone.js 0.5, it won't work. Works with 0.6.

import {Observable} from 'rxjs/Observable';
import {Observer} from 'rxjs/Observer';
import 'rxjs/add/operator/share';
import 'rxjs/add/operator/map';
import 'rxjs/Rx';


@Injectable()
export class AuthService {
    // expose to component
    notification$: Observable<Notification>;
    private observer: Observer<Notification>;

    ....

    constructor(private http: Http) {
        this.notification$ = new Observable(observer => this.observer = observer).share();
    }

    authenticate({username, password}) {
        let packet = JSON.stringify({
            username: username,
            password: password
        });

        let headers = new Headers();
        headers.append('Content-Type', 'application/json');

        this.http.post(`${this.baseUri}/authenticate/`, packet, {
            headers: headers
        })
        .map(res => res.json())
        .subscribe(
            data => {
                if (data.success && data.token) {
                    this.saveJwt(data.token);
                } else {
                    this.deleteJwt();
                }
                // put data into observavle 
                this.observer.next({
                    message: data.message,
                    type: data.success
                });
            },
            err => {
                // put data into observavle  
                this.observer.next({
                    message: 'Error connecting to server',
                    type: false
                })
            },
            () => {}
        );
    }
}


export class AuthComponent implements OnInit {
    observable: Observable<Notification>;

    ...

    ngOnInit() {
        // subscribe to the observable
        this.observable = this.authService.notification$;
        this.observable.subscribe(
            data => {
                ...
            }
        )
    }
}