Learning about Room with MVVM and Flow
In android we are using the SQLite data base. But, we need to write a lot of complex codes to effectively work with SQLite. Fortunately, now we have Room library. Room makes our work much easier by generating all the required complex codes in the background. However, we have to tell room what to do. We communicate with room library using annotations. Room only recognize things by reading annotations.
1)Add the kotlin-kapt plugin to the top of the gradle.
plugins {
id 'com.android.application'
id 'org.jetbrains.kotlin.android'
id 'kotlin-kapt'
id 'kotlin-android'
}
- Add the gradle dependencies required to work with Room ORM (object relational mapper)
dependencies {
// room
implementation "androidx.room:room-runtime:2.5.0"
kapt "androidx.room:room-compiler:2.5.0"
implementation "androidx.room:room-ktx:2.5.0"
}
3)Add dependencies required to use Kotlin Coroutines.
dependencies {
// room
def room_version = "2.2.6"
implementation "androidx.room:room-runtime:$room_version"
kapt "androidx.room:room-compiler:$room_version"
implementation "androidx.room:room-ktx:$room_version"
// coroutines
implementation 'org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-core:1.6.1'
implementation 'org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-android:1.6.1'
}
4)Add the dependencies required to use ViewModel and LiveData
dependencies {
// room
def room_version = "2.2.6"
implementation "androidx.room:room-runtime:$room_version"
kapt "androidx.room:room-compiler:$room_version"
implementation "androidx.room:room-ktx:$room_version"
// coroutines
implementation 'org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-core:1.4.2'
implementation 'org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-android:1.4.2'
//View model and live data
def lifecycle_version = "2.3.1"
implementation "androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-viewmodel-ktx:2.5.1"
// LiveData
implementation "androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-livedata-ktx:$lifecycle_version"
implementation "androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-common-java8:$lifecycle_version"
}
5)Enable data-binding
buildFeatures {
dataBinding = true
}
- Create a Room Entity class.
@Entity(tableName = "table_name")
data class Users(
@PrimaryKey(autoGenerate = true)
@ColumnInfo(name = "user_id")
var id: Int,
@ColumnInfo(name = "user_name")
var name: String,
@ColumnInfo(name = "user_email")
var email: String
)
- create a DAO interface with all required room functions(methods)
@Dao
interface SubscriberDAO {
@Insert
suspend fun insertUser(user: User) : Long
@Update
suspend fun updateUser(user: User) : Int
@Delete
suspend fun deleteUser(user: User) : Int
@Query("DELETE FROM user_data_table")
suspend fun deleteAll() : Int
@Query("SELECT * FROM user_data_table")
fun getAllSubscribers():Flow<List<User>>
}
3)RoomDatabase Class
In order to use Room library, we need an instance of RoomDatabase class. For that, we should create an abstract subclass of RoomDatabase class
@Database(entities = [User::class], version = 1)
abstract class UserDataBase : RoomDatabase() {
abstract val UserDAO: UserDAO
companion object {
private var INSTANCE: UserDataBase? = null
fun getInstance(ctx: Context): UserDataBase {
synchronized(this) {
var instance = INSTANCE
if (instance == null) {
instance = Room.databaseBuilder(
ctx.applicationContext,
UserDataBase::class.java,
"UserDataBase"
).build()
}
return instance
}
}
}
}