Angular 2–HTTP POST is not triggered

Last week a colleague asked me for help because his HTTP POST method was not invoked inside his Angular 2 service.

Here is the code he was using:

this.http.post(this.apiUrl, JSON.stringify(user), this.getRequestOptions());

So why does this code doesn’t work? 

Reason is that the  post method of the Http class returns a cold observable. Cold observables only  are invoked when someone subscribes to it. They are kind of ‘lazy’. As we didn’t subscribe for the Observable results nothing happens.  Here is a fix:

this.http.post(this.apiUrl, JSON.stringify(user), this.getRequestOptions()).subscribe(r=> {});

More information about cold vs hot observables can be found here: https://medium.com/@benlesh/hot-vs-cold-observables-f8094ed53339#.an6vzfics