How to update UI thread from coroutines background thread?

Question

I have got a function displayDirectoryContents2(file: File) which scans all the file and check for files and directories. What I want is to display the current file path in a textview in UI thread

lateinit var textView: TextView


GlobalScope.launch(Dispatchers.IO) {
 displayDirectoryContents2(file)
}

Code for the function

private fun displayDirectoryContents2(dir: File?){
    try {
        val files = dir?.listFiles()!!

        files.forEach {

            if (it.isDirectory) {
                displayDirectoryContents2(it)
            } else { 
                   if (it.isFile) {
                    textView.text = it.name // to Update the file name in UI thread
              }
        }


    } catch (e: IOException) {
        e.printStackTrace()
    }
}

I am new to Kotlin Coroutines. Actually I want to run function displayDirectoryContents2(file: File) in background thread and update the name of the file the function is reading in UI thread just like AsyncTask.

Answer 1

You can either switch dispatcher contexts (Dispatchers.IO for the logic, then to Dispatchers.Main for updating the UI), or you can move your code into a ViewModel and there use the same context switching technique or use postvalue() of LiveData. An example of doing the latter below. You can read on ViewModel here: https://developer.android.com/topic/libraries/architecture/viewmodel

import androidx.lifecycle.LiveData 
import androidx.lifecycle.MutableLiveData
import androidx.lifecycle.ViewModel
import androidx.lifecycle.viewModelScope
import kotlinx.coroutines.Dispatchers
import kotlinx.coroutines.launch
import kotlinx.coroutines.withContext

class MyViewModel() : ViewModel() {
    private val files: MutableLiveData<List<String>> by lazy {
        MutableLiveData<List<String>>()
    }
    fun loadFiles(path: String) {
        viewModelScope.launch(){
            doLoadFiles()
        }
    }
    private suspend fun doLoadFiles() {
        withContext(Dispatchers.IO) {
            val results = listOf("patha", "pathb")//replace with your actual code
            files.postValue(results)
        }
    }
    fun getFiles(): LiveData<List<String>> = files
}

Then call it like this from your activity

import androidx.appcompat.app.AppCompatActivity
import android.view.Menu
import android.view.MenuItem
import androidx.lifecycle.Observer
import androidx.lifecycle.ViewModelProviders

import kotlinx.android.synthetic.main.activity_main.*

class MainActivity : AppCompatActivity() {

    override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main)

        val model = ViewModelProviders.of(this)[MyViewModel::class.java]
        model.getFiles().observe(this, Observer<List<String>>{ paths ->
            // update UI
            println (paths)
        })
        model.loadFiles("S")

    }

In your build.gradle file, make sure to import the relevant dependencies

 def lifecycle_ver = "2.2.0-rc02"
    implementation "androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-runtime-ktx:$lifecycle_ver"
    implementation "androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-extensions:$lifecycle_ver"
    implementation "androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-viewmodel-ktx:$lifecycle_ver"

Answer 2

You can make displayDirectoryContents2 suspended function and then use withContext to switch context.

suspend fun displayDirectoryContents2() {
    ...
    withContext(Dispatchers.Main) {
        textView.text = it.name
    }
    ...
}