Ignore events on stream until condition is satisfied?

Question

I created a stream from button click events. The button corresponds to a create action on the database. Obviously, I want the database action to fire only once (at least until it completes). Is there a way to ignore events on createButtonStream until Api.create returns? i.e., the first event should call #Api.create, subsequent events should be ignored until #Api.create returns.

createButtonStream
   .flatMap(() => Api.create()) //Needs to fire once until doSomething() is called
   .onValue(result => doSomething(result))

The only way that comes to mind is to use global state...and I'd rather not do that.

//i don't wanna do this
let condition = true

createButtonStream
   .filter(() => condition)
   .map(() => condition = false)
   .flatMap(() => Api.create())
   .onValue(result => {condition = true; doSomething(result)})

Answer 1

In RxJS you use the flatMapFirst or exhaustMap operator (if using RxJS 5)

createButtonStream
   .flatMapFirst(() => Api.create())       
   .subscribe(result => doSomething(result));

flatMapFirst will silently drop events if they arrive before the first source completes, the method should not get invoked.