Can adapter.notifyItemRangeChanged(0, itemCount) replace adapter.notifyDataSetChanged()?

Question

For Adapter<RecyclerView.ViewHolder> adapter, using adapter.notifyDataSetChanged() may lead to undesired outcome. For instance

Applying stateListAnimator in RecylerView's item will cause flickering effect when calling notifyDataSetChanged

I was wondering, can we use adapter.notifyItemRangeChanged(0, itemCount) to replace adapter.notifyDataSetChanged()?

As I just tested, adapter.notifyItemRangeChanged(0, itemCount) will able to update all items properly, and cause no flickering.

What might be some potential problem, if we use adapter.notifyItemRangeChanged(0, itemCount) to replace adapter.notifyDataSetChanged()?

Answer 1

Potential issues with using notifyItemRangeChanged(0, itemCount) as a substitute for notifyDataSetChanged() could occur if there are structural changes(Add or Remove Items) in your dataset. In such scenarios, using notifyItemRangeChanged(0, itemCount) might not accurately reflect the changes, as it presumes that the positions of the items have remained unchanged. But there are other issues that I will mention:

• notifyItemRangeChanged() triggers the onBindViewHolder() method for each item in the specified range, which could be resource-intensive for a large number of items.
• notifyDataSetChanged resets the adapter's state. For example, if you have a selection state in your RecyclerView, calling notifyDataSetChanged can clear all selections. On the other hand, notifyItemRangeChanged does not reset the adapter state, so you would need to handle this manually. This is because this method does not necessarily trigger a full rebind of the item view, so the view might not update to reflect its new state.
• If you’re using setHasStableIds(true) in your adapter, and item IDs can change, then calling notifyDataSetChanged() might be necessary to correctly reflect the changes. notifyItemRangeChanged() does not rebind items with the same ID, so it might not reflect changes to items whose data has changed but ID has not.
• If you have nested RecyclerViews, notifyItemRangeChanged might not update the nested RecyclerViews correctly. This is because notifyItemRangeChanged only updates the parent RecyclerView’s items.