Paging Library with custom DataSource not updating row on Room update

Question

I have been implementing the new Paging Library with a RecyclerView with an app built on top of the Architecture Components.

The data to fill the list is obtained from the Room database. In fact, it is fetched from the network, stored on the local database and provided to the list.

In order to provide the necessary data to build the list, I have implemented my own custom PageKeyedDataSource. Everything works as expected except for one little detail. Once the list is displayed, if any change occurs to the data of a list's row element, it is not automatically updated. So, if for example my list is showing a list of items which have a field name, and suddenly, this field is updated in the local Room database for a certain row item, the list does not update the row UI automatically.

This behaviour only happens when using a custom DataSource unlike when the DataSource is obtained automatically from the DAO, by returning a DataSource Factory directly. However, I need to implement a custom DataSource.

I know it could be updated by calling the invalidate() method on the DataSource to rebuild the updated list. However, if the app is showing 2 lists at a time (half screen each for example), and this item appears in both lists, it would be needed to call invalidate() for both lists separately.

I have thought with a solution in which, instead of using an instance of the item's class to fill each ViewHolder, it uses a LiveData wrapped version of it, to make each row observe for changes on its own item and update that row UI when necessary. Nevertheless, I see some downsides on this approach:

1. A LifeCycleOwner (such as the Fragment containing the RecyclerView for example) must be passed to the PagedListAdapter and then forward it to the ViewHolder in order to observe the LiveData wrapped item.
2. A new observer will be registered for each list's new row, so I do not know at all if it has an excessive computational and memory cost, considering it would be done for every list in the app, which has a lot of lists in it.
3. As the LifeCycleOwner observing the LiveData wrapped item would be, for example, the Fragment containing the RecyclerView, instead of the ViewHolder itself, the observer will be notified every time a change on that item occurs, even if the row containing that item is not even visible at that moment because the list has been scrolled, which seems to me like a waste of resources that could increase the computational cost unnecessarily.

I do not know at all if, even considering those downsides, it could seem like a decent approach or, maybe, if any of you know any other cleaner and better way to manage it.

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

Quite some time since last checked this question, but for anyone interested, here is the cause of my issue + a library I made to observe LiveData properly from a ViewHolder (to avoid having to use the workaround explained in the question).

My specific issue was due to a bad use of Kotlin's Data Classes. When using them, it is important to note that (as explained in the docs), the toString(), equals(), hashCode() and copy() will only take into account all those properties declared in the class' constructor, ignoring those declared in the class' body. A simple example:

data class MyClass1(val prop: Int, val name: String) {}

data class MyClass2(val prop: Int) {
    var name: String = ""
}

fun main() {   
    val a = MyClass1(1, "a")
    val b = MyClass1(1, "b")

    println(a == b) //False :) -> a.name != b.name

    val c = MyClass2(2)
    c.name = "c"
    val d = MyClass2(2)
    d.name = "d"

    println(c == d) //True!! :O -> But c.name != d.name
}

This is specially important when implementing the PagedListAdapter's DiffCallback, as if we are in a example's MyClass2 like scenario, no matter how many times we update the name field in our Room database, as the DiffCallback's areContentsTheSame() method is probably always going to return true, making the list never update on that change.

---

If the reason explained above is not the reason of your issue, or you just want to be able to observe LiveData instances properly from a ViewHolder, I developed a small library which provides a Lifecycle to any ViewHolder, making it able to observe LiveData instances the proper way (instead of having to use the workaround explained in the question).

https://github.com/Sarquella/LifecycleCells