Observable Finally on Subscribe

Question

According to this artcle, onComplete and onError function of the subscribe are mutually exclusive.

Meaning either onError or onComplete events will fire up in my subscribe.
I have a logic block which needs to be executed whether I receive an error, or I finish my steam of information successfully.

I looked up for something like finally in python, but all I found is finally which needs to be attached to the observable I create.

But I want to to do that logic only when I subscribe, and after the stream has ended, whether successfully or with an error.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

The current "pipable" variant of this operator is called finalize() (since RxJS 6). The older and now deprecated "patch" operator was called finally() (until RxJS 5.5).

I think finalize() operator is actually correct. You say:

do that logic only when I subscribe, and after the stream has ended

which is not a problem I think. You can have a single source and use finalize() before subscribing to it if you want. This way you're not required to always use finalize():

let source = new Observable(observer => {
  observer.next(1);
  observer.error('error message');
  observer.next(3);
  observer.complete();
}).pipe(
  publish(),
);

source.pipe(
  finalize(() => console.log('Finally callback')),
).subscribe(
  value => console.log('#1 Next:', value),
  error => console.log('#1 Error:', error),
  () => console.log('#1 Complete')
);

source.subscribe(
  value => console.log('#2 Next:', value),
  error => console.log('#2 Error:', error),
  () => console.log('#2 Complete')
);

source.connect();

This prints to console:

#1 Next: 1
#2 Next: 1
#1 Error: error message
Finally callback
#2 Error: error message

Jan 2019: Updated for RxJS 6