Pipes and Operators

In some cases, we may not want to directly deal with the values from an observable. We may need to filter and transform it before delivering it to the observer. RxJS allows us to transform an observable by using pipes and operators.

Understanding operators

An operator is a technical term for a function. Plain and simple. An operator takes in an observable, transforms it, and spits out a brand new observable. We can use an operator to alter the value.

Using an operator

The current observable will emit the event object. This is because we’re listening for the input event on the <input> element. Let’s say rather than returning the entire event object, we just want to return the value in the input.

We can use an operator to change how the observable initially behaves. Let’s update our code to the following: