ReactiveX emit null or sentinel value after timeout

Question

Looking for a clean way to transform a source Observable to emit a single null (or sentinel value) after not emitting an item for some duration.

Answer 1

You can achieve this with a somewhat complicated publish-amb-timer setup:

PublishSubject<Integer> ps = PublishSubject.create();
TestScheduler s = Schedulers.test();
TestSubscriber<Integer> ts = new TestSubscriber<>();

ps.publish(o -> 
    o.take(1).ambWith(Observable.timer(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS, s).map(v -> (Integer)null))
    .repeat().takeUntil(o.ignoreElements())
).subscribe(ts);

ps.onNext(1);
ps.onNext(2);
ps.onNext(3);

s.advanceTimeBy(15, TimeUnit.SECONDS);

ps.onNext(4);
ps.onNext(5);
ps.onNext(6);
ps.onCompleted();

ts.assertValues(1, 2, 3, null, 4, 5, 6);

What happens is that the source is published so you can take items one by one from it or a timer event, make sure the fastest one wins and repeat it with the next value, all without resubscribing to the original source all the time.

Edit fixed the case when the upstream completes the repeat() goes into an infinite loop.

Answer 2

Based on akarnokd's answer and an answer in a similar question, an alternative implementation:

A single sentinel value (as per the OP)

If you're looking for a single value to indicate the lapse of time between emissions:

final TestScheduler scheduler = new TestScheduler();
final TestSubject<Integer> subject = TestSubject.create(scheduler);
final TestSubscriber<Integer> subscriber = new TestSubscriber<>();

final long duration = 100;
final Observable<Integer> timeout = Observable.just(-1).delay(duration, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS, scheduler)
    .concatWith(Observable.never())
    .takeUntil(subject)
    .repeat();

subject.mergeWith(timeout).subscribe(subscriber);

subject.onNext(1,   0);
subject.onNext(2, 100);
subject.onNext(3, 200);

scheduler.advanceTimeBy(200, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
scheduler.advanceTimeBy(300, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);

subject.onNext(4,   0);
subject.onNext(5, 100);
subject.onNext(6, 200);

scheduler.advanceTimeBy(200, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);

subscriber.assertNoTerminalEvent();
subscriber.assertReceivedOnNext(Arrays.asList(1, 2, 3, -1, 4, 5, 6));

Continuous sentinel values

If you're looking to receive values continuously after the source observable not emitting for some duration:

final TestScheduler scheduler = new TestScheduler();
final TestSubject<Integer> subject = TestSubject.create(scheduler);
final TestSubscriber<Integer> subscriber = new TestSubscriber<>();

final long duration = 100;
final Observable<Integer> timeout = Observable.interval(duration, duration, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS, scheduler)
    .map(x -> -1)
    .takeUntil(subject)
    .repeat();

subject.mergeWith(timeout).subscribe(subscriber);

subject.onNext(1,   0);
subject.onNext(2, 100);
subject.onNext(3, 200);

scheduler.advanceTimeBy(200, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
scheduler.advanceTimeBy(300, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);

subject.onNext(4,   0);
subject.onNext(5, 100);
subject.onNext(6, 200);

scheduler.advanceTimeBy(200, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);

subscriber.assertNoTerminalEvent();
subscriber.assertReceivedOnNext(Arrays.asList(1, 2, 3, -1, -1, -1, 4, 5, 6));

---

The difference being the timeout observable and whether it's recurring or not.

You can replace -1 with null as needed.

All of the above is tested with RxJava 1.0.17 using Java 1.8.0_72.