How to dispose Observables in lifecycle independent classes?

Question

I have a network change notifier class based on ConnectivityManager.NetworkCallback and i want to update some fields when network is available;

override fun onAvailable(network: Network?) {
    super.onAvailable(network)
val db = StoreDatabase.getInstance(context)
val stores = db.createStores()

val disposable = stores.insertStore(Stores(storeName = "testOnAvailableNetInsertions", status 
= AppConstants.Database.SYNC_FAIL))
        .subscribeOn(Schedulers.io())
        .observeOn(Schedulers.io()).subscribeWith(object : DisposableCompletableObserver() {
            override fun onComplete() {
                 if (!isDisposed)
                dispose()
            }

            override fun onError(e: Throwable) {
                if (!isDisposed)
                    dispose()
            }

        }).dispose()

Is it okay to call dispose at the end of the method, or do i have to dispose that variable somewhere else, and this is my Dao;

@Insert(onConflict = OnConflictStrategy.REPLACE)
fun insertStore(stores: Stores): Completable 

Answer 1

Note that you do not need to explicitly dispose subscriptions after onComplete or onError is called. Observers will be unsubscribed once they receive any termination events. So one thing you can try is this:

super.onAvailable(network)
val db = StoreDatabase.getInstance(context)
val stores = db.createStores()

stores.insertStore(Stores(storeName="testOnAvailableNetInsertions",
        status=AppConstants.Database.SYNC_FAIL))
    .subscribeOn(Schedulers.io())
    .subscribe()

Calling .dispose() at the end of the chain will dispose the subscription immediately and it doesn't make much sense in most of the scenarios. It might just work in your case since your subscriber technically doesn't do much, but I am not sure. Also, .dispose() does not return anything. In Kotlin it will return a Unit so the val disposable will just be a Unit.