ReactiveUI.Extensions

A focused collection of high–value Reactive Extensions (Rx) operators that do not ship with System.Reactive but are commonly needed when building reactive .NET applications.

The goal of this library is to:

• Reduce boilerplate for frequent reactive patterns (timers, buffering, throttling, heartbeats, etc.)
• Provide pragmatic, allocation?aware helpers for performance sensitive scenarios
• Avoid additional dependencies – only System.Reactive is required

Supported Target Frameworks: .NET Standard 2.0, .NET 8, .NET 9, .NET 10.

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Table of Contents

1. Installation
2. Quick Start
3. API Catalog
4. Operator Categories & Examples
   • Null / Signal Helpers
   • Timing, Scheduling & Flow Control
   • Inactivity / Liveness
   • Error Handling & Resilience
   • Combining, Partitioning & Logical Helpers
   • Async / Task Integration
   • Backpressure / Conflation
   • Selective & Conditional Emission
   • Buffering & Transformation
   • Subscription / Side Effects
   • Utility & Miscellaneous
5. Performance Notes
6. Thread Safety
7. License

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Installation

# Package coming soon (example)
dotnet add package ReactiveUI.Extensions

Reference the project directly while developing locally.

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Quick Start

using System;
using System.Reactive.Linq;
using ReactiveUI.Extensions;

var source = Observable.Interval(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(120))
                       .Take(10)
                       .Select(i => (long?) (i % 3 == 0 ? null : i));

// 1. Filter nulls + convert to a Unit signal.
var signal = source.WhereIsNotNull().AsSignal();

// 2. Add a heartbeat if the upstream goes quiet for 500ms.
var withHeartbeat = source.WhereIsNotNull()
                          .Heartbeat(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(500), Scheduler.Default);

// 3. Retry with exponential backoff up to 5 times.
var resilient = Observable.Defer(() =>
        Observable.Throw<long>(new InvalidOperationException("Boom")))
    .RetryWithBackoff(maxRetries: 5, initialDelay: TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(100));

// 4. Conflate bursty updates.
var conflated = source.Conflate(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(300), Scheduler.Default);

using (conflated.Subscribe(Console.WriteLine))
{
    Console.ReadLine();
}

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API Catalog

Below is the full list of extension methods (grouped logically).
Some overloads omitted for brevity.

Category	Operators
Null & Signal	WhereIsNotNull, AsSignal
Timing & Scheduling	SyncTimer, Schedule (overloads), ScheduleSafe, ThrottleFirst, DebounceImmediate
Inactivity / Liveness	Heartbeat, DetectStale, BufferUntilInactive
Error Handling	CatchIgnore, CatchAndReturn, OnErrorRetry (overloads), RetryWithBackoff
Combining & Aggregation	CombineLatestValuesAreAllTrue, CombineLatestValuesAreAllFalse, GetMax, GetMin, Partition
Logical / Boolean	Not, WhereTrue, WhereFalse
Async / Task	SelectAsyncSequential, SelectLatestAsync, SelectAsyncConcurrent, SubscribeAsync (overloads), SynchronizeSynchronous, SynchronizeAsync, SubscribeSynchronous (overloads)
Backpressure	Conflate
Filtering / Conditional	Filter (Regex), TakeUntil (predicate), WaitUntil
Buffering	BufferUntil, BufferUntilInactive
Transformation & Utility	Shuffle, ForEach, FromArray, Using, While, Start, OnNext (params helper), DoOnSubscribe, DoOnDispose

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Operator Categories & Examples

Null / Signal Helpers

IObservable<string?> raw = GetPossiblyNullStream();
IObservable<string> cleaned = raw.WhereIsNotNull();
IObservable<Unit> signal = cleaned.AsSignal();

Timing, Scheduling & Flow Control

// Shared timer for a given period (one underlying timer per distinct TimeSpan)
var sharedTimer = ReactiveExtensions.SyncTimer(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(1));

// Delay emission of a single value
42.Schedule(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(250), Scheduler.Default)
  .Subscribe(v => Console.WriteLine($"Delayed: {v}"));

// Safe scheduling when a scheduler may be null
IScheduler? maybeScheduler = null;
maybeScheduler.ScheduleSafe(() => Console.WriteLine("Ran inline"));

// ThrottleFirst: allow first item per window, ignore rest
var throttled = Observable.Interval(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(50))
                          .ThrottleFirst(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(200));

// DebounceImmediate: emit first immediately then debounce rest
var debounced = Observable.Interval(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(40))
                          .DebounceImmediate(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(250));

Inactivity / Liveness

// Heartbeat emits IHeartbeat<T> where IsHeartbeat == true during quiet periods
var heartbeats = Observable.Interval(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(400))
                           .Take(5)
                           .Heartbeat(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(300), Scheduler.Default);

// DetectStale emits IStale<T>: one stale marker after inactivity, or fresh update wrappers
var staleAware = Observable.Timer(TimeSpan.Zero, TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(500))
                           .Take(3)
                           .DetectStale(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(300), Scheduler.Default);

// BufferUntilInactive groups events separated by inactivity
var bursts = Observable.Interval(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(60)).Take(20);
var groups = bursts.BufferUntilInactive(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(200));

Error Handling & Resilience

var flaky = Observable.Create<int>(o =>
{
    o.OnNext(1);
    o.OnError(new InvalidOperationException("Fail"));
    return () => { };
});

// Ignore all errors and complete silently
a flakySafe = flaky.CatchIgnore();

// Replace error with a fallback value
var withFallback = flaky.CatchAndReturn(-1);

// Retry only specific exception type with logging
var retried = flaky.OnErrorRetry<int, InvalidOperationException>(ex => Console.WriteLine(ex.Message), retryCount: 3);

// Retry with exponential backoff
var backoff = flaky.RetryWithBackoff(maxRetries: 5, initialDelay: TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(100));

Combining, Partitioning & Logical Helpers

var a = Observable.Interval(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(150)).Select(i => i % 2 == 0);
var b = Observable.Interval(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(170)).Select(i => i % 3 == 0);

var allTrue = new[] { a, b }.CombineLatestValuesAreAllTrue();
var allFalse = new[] { a, b }.CombineLatestValuesAreAllFalse();

var numbers = Observable.Range(1, 10);
var (even, odd) = numbers.Partition(n => n % 2 == 0); // Partition stream

var toggles = a.Not(); // Negate booleans

Async / Task Integration

IObservable<int> inputs = Observable.Range(1, 5);

// Sequential (preserves order)
var seq = inputs.SelectAsyncSequential(async i => { await Task.Delay(50); return i * 2; });

// Latest only (cancels previous)
var latest = inputs.SelectLatestAsync(async i => { await Task.Delay(100); return i; });

// Limited parallelism
var concurrent = inputs.SelectAsyncConcurrent(async i => { await Task.Delay(100); return i; }, maxConcurrency: 2);

// Asynchronous subscription (serializing tasks)
inputs.SubscribeAsync(async i => await Task.Delay(10));

// Synchronous gate: ensures per-item async completion before next is emitted
a inputs.SubscribeSynchronous(async i => await Task.Delay(25));

Backpressure / Conflation

// Conflate: enforce minimum spacing between emissions while always outputting the most recent value
a var noisy = Observable.Interval(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(20)).Take(30);
var conflated = noisy.Conflate(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(200), Scheduler.Default);

Selective & Conditional Emission

// TakeUntil predicate (inclusive)
var untilFive = Observable.Range(1, 100).TakeUntil(x => x == 5);

// WaitUntil first match then complete
var firstEven = Observable.Range(1, 10).WaitUntil(x => x % 2 == 0);

Buffering & Transformation

// BufferUntil - collect chars between delimiters
var chars = "<a><bc><d>".ToCharArray().ToObservable();
var frames = chars.BufferUntil('<', '>'); // emits "<a>", "<bc>", "<d>"

// Shuffle arrays in-place
var arrays = Observable.Return(new[] { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 });
var shuffled = arrays.Shuffle();

Subscription & Side Effects

var stream = Observable.Range(1, 3)
    .DoOnSubscribe(() => Console.WriteLine("Subscribed"))
    .DoOnDispose(() => Console.WriteLine("Disposed"));

using (stream.Subscribe(Console.WriteLine))
{
    // auto dispose at using end
}

Utility & Miscellaneous

// Emit list contents quickly with low allocations
var listSource = Observable.Return<IEnumerable<int>>(new List<int> { 1, 2, 3 });
listSource.ForEach().Subscribe(Console.WriteLine);

// Using helper for deterministic disposal
var value = new MemoryStream().Using(ms => ms.Length);

// While loop (reactive)
var counter = 0;
ReactiveExtensions.While(() => counter++ < 3, () => Console.WriteLine(counter))
                   .Subscribe();

// Batch push with OnNext params
var subj = new Subject<int>();
subj.OnNext(1, 2, 3, 4);

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Performance Notes

• FastForEach path avoids iterator allocations for List<T>, IList<T>, and arrays.
• SyncTimer ensures only one shared timer per period reducing timer overhead.
• Conflate helps tame high–frequency producers without dropping the final value of a burst.
• Heartbeat and DetectStale use lightweight scheduling primitives.
• Most operators avoid capturing lambdas in hot loops where practical.

Thread Safety

• All operators are pure functional transformations unless documented otherwise.
• SyncTimer uses a ConcurrentDictionary and returns a hot IConnectableObservable that connects once per unique TimeSpan.
• Methods returning shared observables (SyncTimer, Partition result sequences) are safe for multi-subscriber usage unless the upstream is inherently side-effecting.

License

MIT – see LICENSE file.

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Contributing

Issues / PRs welcome. Please keep additions dependency–free and focused on broadly useful reactive patterns.

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Change Log (Excerpt)

(Keep this section updated as the library evolves.)

• Added async task projection helpers (SelectAsyncSequential, SelectLatestAsync, SelectAsyncConcurrent).
• Added liveness operators (Heartbeat, DetectStale, BufferUntilInactive).
• Added resilience (RetryWithBackoff, expanded OnErrorRetry overloads).
• Added flow control (Conflate, ThrottleFirst, DebounceImmediate).

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Happy reactive coding!