Angular2 http.get() ,map(), subscribe() and observable pattern – basic understanding

Here is where you went wrong:

this.result = http.get('friends.json')
                  .map(response => response.json())
                  .subscribe(result => this.result =result.json());

it should be:

http.get('friends.json')
                  .map(response => response.json())
                  .subscribe(result => this.result =result);

or

http.get('friends.json')
                  .subscribe(result => this.result =result.json());

You have made two mistakes:

1- You assigned the observable itself to this.result. When you actually wanted to assign the list of friends to this.result. The correct way to do it is:

• you subscribe to the observable. .subscribe is the function that actually executes the observable. It takes three callback parameters as follow:

  .subscribe(success, failure, complete);

for example:

.subscribe(
    function(response) { console.log("Success Response" + response)},
    function(error) { console.log("Error happened" + error)},
    function() { console.log("the subscription is completed")}
);

Usually, you take the results from the success callback and assign it to your variable.
the error callback is self explanatory.
the complete callback is used to determine that you have received the last results without any errors.
On your plunker, the complete callback will always be called after either the success or the error callback.

2- The second mistake, you called .json() on .map(res => res.json()), then you called it again on the success callback of the observable.
.map() is a transformer that will transform the result to whatever you return (in your case .json()) before it’s passed to the success callback
you should called it once on either one of them.