Delegation: EventEmitter or Observable in Angular

Question

I am trying to implement something like a delegation pattern in Angular. When the user clicks on a nav-item, I would like to call a function which then emits an event which should in turn be handled by some other component listening for the event.

Here is the scenario: I have a Navigation component:

import {Component, Output, EventEmitter} from 'angular2/core';

@Component({
    // other properties left out for brevity
    events : ['navchange'], 
    template:`
      <div class="nav-item" (click)="selectedNavItem(1)"></div>
    `
})

export class Navigation {

    @Output() navchange: EventEmitter<number> = new EventEmitter();

    selectedNavItem(item: number) {
        console.log('selected nav item ' + item);
        this.navchange.emit(item)
    }

}

Here is the observing component:

export class ObservingComponent {

  // How do I observe the event ? 
  // <----------Observe/Register Event ?-------->

  public selectedNavItem(item: number) {
    console.log('item index changed!');
  }

}

The key question is, how do I make the observing component observe the event in question ?

Answer 1

Update 2016-06-27: instead of using Observables, use either

• a BehaviorSubject, as recommended by @Abdulrahman in a comment, or
• a ReplaySubject, as recommended by @Jason Goemaat in a comment

A Subject is both an Observable (so we can subscribe() to it) and an Observer (so we can call next() on it to emit a new value). We exploit this feature. A Subject allows values to be multicast to many Observers. We don't exploit this feature (we only have one Observer).

BehaviorSubject is a variant of Subject. It has the notion of "the current value". We exploit this: whenever we create an ObservingComponent, it gets the current navigation item value from the BehaviorSubject automatically.

The code below and the plunker use BehaviorSubject.

ReplaySubject is another variant of Subject. If you want to wait until a value is actually produced, use ReplaySubject(1). Whereas a BehaviorSubject requires an initial value (which will be provided immediately), ReplaySubject does not. ReplaySubject will always provide the most recent value, but since it does not have a required initial value, the service can do some async operation before returning it's first value. It will still fire immediately on subsequent calls with the most recent value. If you just want one value, use first() on the subscription. You do not have to unsubscribe if you use first().

import {Injectable}      from '@angular/core'
import {BehaviorSubject} from 'rxjs/BehaviorSubject';

@Injectable()
export class NavService {
  // Observable navItem source
  private _navItemSource = new BehaviorSubject<number>(0);
  // Observable navItem stream
  navItem$ = this._navItemSource.asObservable();
  // service command
  changeNav(number) {
    this._navItemSource.next(number);
  }
}

import {Component}    from '@angular/core';
import {NavService}   from './nav.service';
import {Subscription} from 'rxjs/Subscription';

@Component({
  selector: 'obs-comp',
  template: `obs component, item: {{item}}`
})
export class ObservingComponent {
  item: number;
  subscription:Subscription;
  constructor(private _navService:NavService) {}
  ngOnInit() {
    this.subscription = this._navService.navItem$
       .subscribe(item => this.item = item)
  }
  ngOnDestroy() {
    // prevent memory leak when component is destroyed
    this.subscription.unsubscribe();
  }
}

@Component({
  selector: 'my-nav',
  template:`
    <div class="nav-item" (click)="selectedNavItem(1)">nav 1 (click me)</div>
    <div class="nav-item" (click)="selectedNavItem(2)">nav 2 (click me)</div>`
})
export class Navigation {
  item = 1;
  constructor(private _navService:NavService) {}
  selectedNavItem(item: number) {
    console.log('selected nav item ' + item);
    this._navService.changeNav(item);
  }
}

Plunker

---

Original answer that uses an Observable: (it requires more code and logic than using a BehaviorSubject, so I don't recommend it, but it may be instructive)

So, here's an implementation that uses an Observable instead of an EventEmitter. Unlike my EventEmitter implementation, this implementation also stores the currently selected navItem in the service, so that when an observing component is created, it can retrieve the current value via API call navItem(), and then be notified of changes via the navChange$ Observable.

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

export class NavService {
  private _navItem = 0;
  navChange$: Observable<number>;
  private _observer: Observer;
  constructor() {
    this.navChange$ = new Observable(observer =>
      this._observer = observer).share();
    // share() allows multiple subscribers
  }
  changeNav(number) {
    this._navItem = number;
    this._observer.next(number);
  }
  navItem() {
    return this._navItem;
  }
}

@Component({
  selector: 'obs-comp',
  template: `obs component, item: {{item}}`
})
export class ObservingComponent {
  item: number;
  subscription: any;
  constructor(private _navService:NavService) {}
  ngOnInit() {
    this.item = this._navService.navItem();
    this.subscription = this._navService.navChange$.subscribe(
      item => this.selectedNavItem(item));
  }
  selectedNavItem(item: number) {
    this.item = item;
  }
  ngOnDestroy() {
    this.subscription.unsubscribe();
  }
}

@Component({
  selector: 'my-nav',
  template:`
    <div class="nav-item" (click)="selectedNavItem(1)">nav 1 (click me)</div>
    <div class="nav-item" (click)="selectedNavItem(2)">nav 2 (click me)</div>
  `,
})
export class Navigation {
  item:number;
  constructor(private _navService:NavService) {}
  selectedNavItem(item: number) {
    console.log('selected nav item ' + item);
    this._navService.changeNav(item);
  }
}

Plunker

---

See also the Component Interaction Cookbook example, which uses a Subject in addition to observables. Although the example is "parent and children communication," the same technique is applicable for unrelated components.