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firebase persist data with circular reference

I've a simple data that i want to persist on firebase.
This data is a domain class for my relational model (i started with a relational model and now im deciding whenever or not migrate to firebase, but for awhile im working with both... or trying to)
To persist a new instance if my class on firebase i need to do:
Map<String, Object> firebase = new HashMap<String, Object>();
firebase.put("raffleDate", this.giveaway.getRaffleDate());
firebase.put("thumbnailUrl", this.giveaway.getThumbnailUrl());
firebase.put("mustFollowList", this.giveaway.getMustFollowList());
firebase.put("owner", this.giveaway.getOwner());
firebase.put("amountFriendsToIndicate", this.giveaway.getAmountFriendsToIndicate());
firebase.put("mediaId", this.giveaway.getMediaId());
((App) getApplication()).getFirebase().child("giveaways").child(this.giveaway.getMediaId()).setValue(firebase);
because besides these fields Giveaway has one last other field which has a circular reference to itself
#ToMany(referencedJoinProperty = "raffle")
#Expose(deserialize = false, serialize = false)
private List<UserOnGiveaway> attendantsTickets;
This field maps the relatioship between user and its giveaways, UserOnGiveaway class has a reference to User and Giveaway so when i try to persist i get a very long non compreensive error that I can just guess is due some stackoverflow because of the circular reference
The thing is I DONT REALLY CARE ABOUT PERSISTING THIS FIELD, in my actual "hybrid" archtecture i'm using firebase only to persist data shared among users, individual user data is being stored locally on android sqlite
So i would like to know is there any way i can annotate this field to force firebase ignore it?
or is there any parameter is can set on firebase call to do it?
PLEASE do not suggest transient as it will also affect my ORM
PLEASE2 do not suggest changes on domain since i'm giving a try to firebase i wont make any structural changes before decide for it.
thanks

You can use the #Exclude annotation on a field or getter/setter method to omit it from serialization with the Firebase SDK.

Storing null values in realm using Android

Previously, when there was no stable version of realm for Java (Android), we could not store null values in realm and we had to perform some unnatural hack to be able to do so, as explained in this post.
But as of now realm 1.0 is released, are there any update about being able to store null value?
For example : unfortunate cases when there is no field in JSON which I want to store in realm after parsing but haven't handled it manually.
I have the following code:
realmObject.setData(jsonObject.getString("SELECTOR"));
the program flow stops and exits the block the code is located inside.
the logcat shows
W/System.err: org.json.JSONException: No value for SELECTOR
But when I do:
realmObject.setData(null);
The program flow does not stop and continues across my realm statement realmObject.setData(null);
In some cases, there is no value for the tag "SELECTOR" in my Json file.
And I want it to be null in default.

I actually found out that the problem is actually with just :
jsonObject.getString("SELECTOR")
not the whole statement:
realmObject.setData(jsonObject.getString("SELECTOR"));
so the fix for me was
realmObject.setData(jsonObject.optString("SELECTOR"));

you can use has that will check whether key is available of not and basis of that save value to realm object
if (jsonObject.has("SELECTOR")) {
realmObject.setData(jsonObject.getString("SELECTOR"));
}
else{
realmObject.setData(null);
}

Cant retrieve data correctly from realm [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
Cannot retrieve field values from realm object, values are null in debugger
(5 answers)
Closed 5 years ago.
I am trying to implement a generic realm wrapper. So, i can pass an object with its class to either add/update or get. I am using the realm browser to confirm that i am saving the data correctly, but when i perform a getAll query, i receive an array with the correct amount with the correct data structure but all the fields are in default values or null.
Here is my code :
Add RealmModel: (UserRealmModel)
#Override
public void putAll(Collection<RealmObject> realmModels) {
mRealm = Realm.getDefaultInstance();
mRealm.beginTransaction();
mRealm.copyToRealmOrUpdate(realmModels);
mRealm.commitTransaction();
}
GetAllRealmModels: (UserRealmModel)
#Override
public RealmResults getAll(Class clazz) {
return Realm.getDefaultInstance().allObjects(clazz);
}
I also tried:
#Override
public RealmResults getAll(Class clazz) {
return Realm.getDefaultInstance().where(clazz).findAll();
}
clazz = UserRealmModel.class
Output:
But whats interesting that in the debug view as shown in the screenshot, the toString method shows the correct data!
Help please :)

Mr Zeyad,
I went through Realm documentation for you. They have a well written document with an eample for your question.
They say,
Adding a watch in Android Studio on a RealmObject will display values of the fields. Unfortunately these values are wrong because the field values are not used. Realm creates a proxy object behind the scenes and overrides the getters and setters in order to access the persisted data in the Realm. Adding a watch for any of the accessors will yield correct values.
In the image above the debugger has stopped on line 113. There are three watch values, the person variable and the person.getName() and person.getAge() accessors. The code from lines 107 to 111 alters the person instance by changing the name and age. These values are then persisted in a transaction. On line 113, where the debugger is currently paused, the person watch instance is reporting on field values and they are incorrect. The watch values that use the accessor for person.getName() and person.getAge() report values that are correct.
Please note, the .toString() method will output the correct values but the watch panel will not (when watching a variable which is a RealmObject).
Read More Here
Hope it helps!

Android: how to keep realmlist updated in the UI

I have a recyclerview which shows a list of students.
All of the students are held in a realmlist in the adapter.
When the user can ask for a data refresh, than the server sends the list of students back to the user.
What i am doing now is to download all of the information from the server , store it in the db , than retrieving it from the database(via realmresults) and than converting the realmresult to realmlist.
My question is how to properly update the UI?
I have seen in the documentation that realmlist have a managed mode where they are updating the ui automatically..
What is this managed mode? What does it means?
How do i use the realmlist to keep it in a managed state?
And what is the right way(aka best practice) to use realmlists?
Note that i cannot hold my information as realmresult directly because im performing some manipulation on the data that i dont want it to be saved.

Managed Object vs. Standalone
The standalone RealmObject/RealmList is created through the Object's constructor or the Realm.copyFromRealm() method. The data accessing in the standalone object won't go through the underline storage engine, instead, it behaves just like normal object. So the standalone object won't be refreshed when data changes. Examples for standalone object:
MyModel myModel = new MyModel(); // Standalone
MyModel model = realm.where(MyModel.class).findFirst(); // This is managed object.
MyModel standaloneModel = realm.copyFromRealm(model); // The returned value is standalone object.
MyList myList = new MyList(); // Standalone
The managed RealmObject/RealmList are accessing data though Realm's underlying storage engine. They are created when you do query from Realm, or the return from the copyToRealm() (and its variant methods). Like:
MyModel model = realm.where(MyModel.class).findFirst();
MyModel model = new MyModel(); // This is a standalone object.
model = realm.copyToRealm(modle); // The returned value is managed by Realm now.
MyList myList = realm.where(MyModel.class).findFirst().getMyList();
How to properly update the UI
The suggestion is using Realm's change listeners. See https://realm.io/docs/java/latest/#notifications
And what is the right way(aka best practice) to use RealmList?
This is a bit confusing, but Realm is introducing RealmCollection into the next major release (v0.89.0). See https://github.com/realm/realm-java/pull/2345.
Note that i cannot hold my information as realmresult directly because im performing some manipulation on the data that i dont want it to be saved.
If the RealmList is in managed mode, the data changes will be saved as well. If you don't want some data to be saved, you could consider to use #Ignore annotation on those fields. See https://realm.io/docs/java/latest/#ignoring-properties
Update on 04072016
RealmList vs. RealmResults:
RealmList is a list of RealmObject saved as a field of a RealmObject. It represents the one-to-many relationship in Realm.
RealmResults is the results of query.
Both of them (if RealmList in managed-mode) will be auto-refreshed when data changes.
You can get a RealmResults from a RealmList by RealmList.where() like:
RealmResults results = myRealmList.where().findAll();
This answer will be a bit out-of-date after Realm v0.89.0 released, because of new RealmCollection.

Realm or Paper for JPA in Android?

I'm developing an Android app with Android Annotations. For persistence, I firstly used a Content Provider (very complex) on top of SQLite. Then, I discovered Realm. It seemed very cool until I had to be notified for insertions to make my RecyclerView dynamic. To be notified of insertions, I made a singleton class I called RealmProxy with a proxy method for copyToRealm(), and an interface to implement to be a RealmListener. I called registered listeners in my copyToRealm() method passing them the added RealmObject, so I could populate my SortedList (support library list designed for RecyclerView) RecyclerView Adapter. I also used my RealmListener interface to send new Objects over network as soon as they are saved.
After compiling and running, I got and IllegalStateException (Realm access from incorrect thread. Realm objects can only be accessed on the thread they were created.) because I get the Realm instance from UI thread but I send them over network in a background thread obviously. Why do I get this error ? Whenever my JSON serialization library LoganSquare, based on Jackson calls a getter on my RealmObject in the background to send over network, this exception is thrown. This made me hate Realm thread policy and the fact that fine grained notifications aren't built-in. Also, Realm doesn't allow me to define any custom method. I can't even implement Comparable in a Realm Object.
When I saw Paper (thanks to Android Arsenal and Pushbullet) today, I was very interested in a no headaches JPA solution. It seems very simple, without restriction for Lists, Maps, and any class not extending a special class (Realm requires extending RealmObject and using RealmList instead of generic List which my json<>java didn't liked, forcing me to copy lists).
EDIT:
I discovered SnappyDB today. It uses the same serialization library (Kryo) as Paper, it seems to be very similar to Paper, with more features for keys management.
So my question is the following:
Should I search for workarounds and continue to use Realm, if yes, which workarounds, or should I use Paper, or SnappyDB instead ? Did anyone used Paper or SnappyDB for android?
All the best

If your question is about how to update your Object in UI thread when it gets changed in background, it is actually quite simple.
For example in your UI thread you can do this:
private Dog dog;
private RealmChangeListener listener = new RealmChangeListener() {
#Override
// This will be called when the commitTransaction gets called
// in the background thread
public void onChange() {
// It would changed to "EFG" automatically in next UI loop after
// you updated it in the background thread.
String name = dog.getName();
}
};
#Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
dog = realm.where(Dog.class).equalTo("id", 42).findFirst();
// Assume it is "ABC" now
String name = dog.getName();
// Register the listener
realm.addChangeListener(listener);
}
And update the dog in th background service like:
// This realm will be a different instance created in this thread.
dog = realm.where(Dog.class).equalTo("id", 42).findFirst();
realm.beginTransaction();
dog.setName("EFG");
realm.commitTransaction();
The IllegalStateException is because of:
The only rule to using Realm across threads is to remember that Realm, RealmObject or RealmResults instances cannot be passed across threads. When you want to access the same data from a different thread, you should simply obtain a new Realm instance (i.e. Realm.getInstance(Context context) or its cousins) and get your objects through a query. The objects will map to the same data on disk, and will be readable & writeable from any thread!
See see doc here
And you probably need RealmBaseAdapter which can make building a ListView with Realm pretty easy. You can find example here.

JPA is not a solution, it's a definition for Java Persistence. Once you choose JPA, you need to find an implementation. In the Java world, the most widely used implementation is Hibernate. Also, you can use Hibernate ORM without using JPA.
On Android, OrmLite provides an implementation for a subset of JPA. But, as it's only a subset, you may as well skip JPA and use the equivalent Ormlite annotations. I use JPA implemented by Hibernate on my server apps, and Ormlite with no JPA on Android. I definitely recommend Ormlite.