Eyas's Blog

Use AsyncPipe When Possible

I typically review a fair amount of Angular code at work. One thing I typically encourage is using plain Observables in an Angular Component, and using AsyncPipe (foo | async) from the template html to handle subscription, rather than directly subscribing to an observable in a component TS file.

Subscribing in Components

Unless you know a subscription you’re starting in a component is very finite (e.g. an HTTP request with no retry logic, etc), subscriptions you make in a Component must:

  1. Be closed, stopped, or cancelled when exiting a component (e.g. when navigating away from a page),
  2. Only be opened (subscribed) when a component is actually loaded/visible (i.e. in ngOnInit rather than in a constructor).

Consider:

@Component()
export class Foo implements OnInit, OnDestroy {
    someStringToDisplay = "";
    private readonly onDestroy = new ReplaySubject<void>(1);

    ngOnInit() {
        someObservable
            .pipe(takeUntil(this.onDestroy), map(/* ... */))
            .subscribe((next) => {
                this.someStringToDisplay = next;
                this.ref.markForCheck();
            });
    }

    ngOnDestroy() {
        this.onDestroy.next(undefined);
    }
}
@Component()
export class Foo implements OnInit, OnDestroy {
    someStringToDisplay = "";
    private subscription = Subscription.EMPTY;

    ngOnInit() {
        this.subscription = someObservable
            .pipe(map(/*...*/))
            .subscribe((next) => {
                this.someStringToDisplay = next;
                this.ref.markForCheck();
            });
    }

    ngOnDestroy() {
        this.subscription.unsubscribe();
    }
}
<span>{{someStringToDisplay}}</span>

AsyncPipe can take care of that for you

@Component()
export class Foo {
    someStringToDisplay = someObservable.pipe(map(/*...*/));
}
<span>{{someStringToDisplay | async}}</span>

Much better! No need to remember to manage unsubscribe. No need to implement OnDestroy. AsyncPipe does its own unsubscribe on destruction, etc. If you only implement OnInit to make a new subscription, you can forego that too.

Best Practice: Use publishReplay and refCount if accessing the same Observable from multiple places

If you need to access a value multiple times, consider using the publishReplay and refCount RxJS operators:

pageTitle = this.route.params.pipe(
    map((params) => params["id"]),
    flatMap((id) =>
        this.http.get(`api/pages/${id}/title`, { responseType: "text" })
    ),
    publishReplay(1),
    refCount()
);
<h1>{{pageTitle | async}}</h1>
<p>You are viewing {{pageTitle | async}}.</p>

This will cause the template rendering to make a single request for pageTitle, and cache the result between both uses.

Best Practice: Combine *ngIf, as, and else with AsyncPipe

If you need to handle the loading state, and need to display nested properties of an object returned from an observable, you can do something like:

<ng-container *ngIf="(pageObservable | async) as page; else loading">
    <!-- can refer to 'page' here -->
    <h1>{{page.title}}</h1>
    <p>{{page.paragraph}}</p>
</ng-container>
<ng-template #loading>Loading…</ng-template>

Note that this doesn’t distinguish between the case where pageObservable is still loading, and the case where pageObservable resolved to a falsey value.