Return an empty Observable

The function more() is supposed to return an Observable from a get request

export class Collection {
  public more = (): Observable<Response> => {
    if (this.hasMore()) {
      return this.fetch();
    } else {
      // return empty observable
    }
  };

  private fetch = (): Observable<Response> => {
    return this.http.get("some-url").map((res) => {
      return res.json();
    });
  };
}

In this case I can only do a request if hasMore() is true, else I get an error on subscribe() function subscribe is not defined, how can I return an empty Observable?

this.collection.more().subscribe(
  (res) => {
    console.log(res);
  }, (err) => {
    console.log(err);
  }
);

With the new syntax of RxJS 5.5+, this becomes as the following:

// RxJS 6
import { EMPTY, empty, of } from "rxjs";

// rxjs 5.5+ (<6)
import { empty } from "rxjs/observable/empty";
import { of } from "rxjs/observable/of";

empty(); // deprecated use EMPTY
EMPTY;
of({});

Just one thing to keep in mind, EMPTY completes the observable, so it won't trigger next in your stream, but only completes. So if you have, for instance, tap, they might not get trigger as you wish (see an example below).

Whereas of({}) creates an Observable and emits next with a value of {} and then it completes the Observable.

E.g.:

EMPTY.pipe(
    tap(() => console.warn("i will not reach here, as i am complete"))
).subscribe();

of({}).pipe(
    tap(() => console.warn("i will reach here and complete"))
).subscribe();

For typescript you can specify generic param of your empty observable like this:

import 'rxjs/add/observable/empty' 

Observable.empty<Response>();

RxJS6 (without compatibility package installed)

There's now an EMPTY constant and an empty function.

  import { Observable, empty, EMPTY, of } from 'rxjs';

  //This is now deprecated
  var delay = empty().pipe(delay(1000));     
  var delay2 = EMPTY.pipe(delay(1000));

Observable.empty() doesn't exist anymore.