Angular2: switchMap not canceling previous http calls

Question

I am trying to use switchMap to cancel any previous http calls in Angular2. The code is basically

var run = ():Observable<any> => {
        var url = 'http://...'
        return this._http.get(url)
            .map(result => {
                return var xmlData:string = result.text()

            });
    }


    function pollTasks() {
        return Observable.of(1)
            .switchMap(() => run())
            .map(res => res)
    }

    // caller can do subscription and store it as a handle:
    let tasksSubscription =
        pollTasks()
            .subscribe(data => {
                console.log('aa'+data)
            });

and so I call the entire source several times in a row and receive several replies (i.e.: aa+data)

I was under the impression switchMap should cancel the previous calls.

Answer 1

The requests need to originate from the same underlying stream. Here's a factory function that will create an http service instance that should do what you want:

function httpService(url) {
   // httpRequest$ stream that allows us to push new requests
   const httpRequest$ = new Rx.Subject();

   // httpResponse$ stream that allows clients of the httpService
   // to handle our responses (fetch here can be replaced with whatever
   // http library you're using).
   const httpResponse$ = httpRequest$
       .switchMap(() => fetch(url));


   // Expose a single method get() that pushes a new
   // request onto the httpRequest stream. Expose the
   // httpResponse$ stream to handle responses.
   return {
       get: () => httpRequest$.next(),
       httpResponse$
   };
}

And now the client code can use this service like this:

const http = httpService('http://my.api.com/resource');

// Subscribe to any responses
http.httpResponse$.subscribe(resp => console.log(resp));

// Call http.get() a bunch of times: should only get one log!!
http.get();
http.get();
http.get();

Answer 2

constructor(private _http:Http, private appStore:AppStore) {

        this.httpRequest$ = new Subject();


        this.httpRequest$
            .map(v=> {
                return v;
        })
        .switchMap((v:any):any => {
            console.log(v);
            if (v.id==-1||v.id=='-1')
                return 'bye, cancel all pending network calls';                
            return this._http.get('example.com)
                .map(result => {
                    var xmlData:string = result.text()
                });
        }).share()
        .subscribe(e => {                
        })
    ...

and to push data in:

this.httpRequest$.next({id: busId});        

this works great and I can now have a single service that I can pipe all network calls through as well as cancel prior calls...

see image below, as new calls come in, prior ones are canceled. note how I set slow network with a delay of 4sec to provide all is working as expected...