Develop Reference

Adding a custom class breaks Compose compilation

I'm just trying to get started with Android development and Kotlin using Jetpack Compose. Note that, I'm a Kotlin novice, so I'm trying to learn along the way. I come from JavaScript/TypeScript background, so I'm trying to learn by thinking in JavaScript terms and implement in Kotlin terms by searching online.
I'm trying to list all installed applications on the device. While the app was working as expected up till now, I needed to add a feature to sort the installed app names. I referred to: https://www.bezkoder.com/kotlin-sort-list-objects/#Create_Class_for_handling_sorting. As soon as I added a custom class to sort the List<ApplicationInfo>, my app stopped building.
I have included my repo here: https://github.com/Hrishikesh-K/TryKotlin
If I comment these lines and this line as well, the app builds fine. With the current setup, I get an error:
Functions which invoke #Composable functions must be marked with the #Composable annotation
which points to line 21, character 18, which is the start of the word compare.
I don't understand why Compose would care about a custom class, it's not a Composable function after all. What am I missing?

In the compare method you are using LocalContext.current
override fun compare(o1 : ApplicationInfo, o2 : ApplicationInfo): Int {
return o1.loadLabel(LocalContext.current.packageManager).toString().compareTo(o2.loadLabel(LocalContext.current.packageManager).toString())
}
You can't use a #Composable functions if the method is not marked with the #Composable.
Use something different like:
data class CompareApplicationNames(val context: Context) : Comparator<ApplicationInfo> {
override fun compare(o1 : ApplicationInfo, o2 : ApplicationInfo): Int {
return o1.loadLabel(context.packageManager).toString().compareTo(o2.loadLabel(context.packageManager).toString())
}
}
Then just use:
Log.d("sorted:", listOfApplications.sortedWith(CompareApplicationNames(LocalContext.current)).toString())

Filtering Android Connected Tests

I have a few "connected" tests that are only relevant to run on a specific device model or on a specific brand and should be skipped on other brands/models.
I may be missing something, but this kind of filtering seems not possible out-of-the-box with AndroidJUnitRunner (by using annotation and/or passing appropriate arguments to it).
So, I was thinking to extend the AndroidX test framework to support this kind of filtering. In the end, I would like to be able to filter test with something like this
#TargetDeviceFilter(brand="SAMSUNG",model="XCover3")
#Test
public void myTestToRunOnSamsungXCover3DeviceOnly(){
...
}
My question: is there any way to accomplish this kind of filtering without extending AndroidX test framework? And if writing my own AndroidJUnitRunner and/or my own annotations is required, how should I start ?
I found a few interesting base classes that I may need to extend like :
androidx.test.internal.runner.TestRequestBuilder
androidx.test.internal.runner.TestRequestBuilder.DeviceBuild
but as those classes are in a "internal" package: attempting to extend them is probably not a good idea?
Any advice on how to deal with that problem is welcome.

I think, you may use org.junit.Assume.
Create a helper class DeviceHelper to detect mobile device informations for convenience.
Your test logic will be executed only if the assumption is correct.
#Test
public void myTestToRunOnSamsungXCover3DeviceOnly() {
// adapt this part to your business need
org.junit.Assume.assumeTrue(
DeviceHelper.isBrand("SAMSUNG") &&
DeviceHelper.isModel("XCover3")
);
// i.e. you can filter whatever you want test's according to device sdk_int
assumeTrue(SomeHelper.getDeviceSdk() >= 21);
// your test code
}

Where to do Arrow.io IO.runUnsafeSync() ? ViewModel or Activity/Fragment?

I'm trying to learn the Arrow library and improve my functional programming by transitioning some of my Android Kotlin code from more imperative style to functional style. I've been doing a type of MVI programming in the application to make testing simpler.
"Traditional" Method
ViewModel
My view model has a LiveData of the view's state plus a public method to pass user interactions from the view to the viewmodel so the view model can update state in whatever way is appropriate.
class MyViewModel: ViewModel() {
val state = MutableLiveData(MyViewState()) // MyViewState is a data class with relevant data
fun instruct(intent: MyIntent) { // MyIntent is a sealed class of data classes representing user interactions
return when(intent) {
is FirstIntent -> return viewModelScope.launch(Dispatchers.IO) {
val result = myRoomRepository.suspendFunctionManipulatingDatabase(intent.myVal)
updateStateWithResult(result)
}.run { Unit }
is SecondIntent -> return updateStateWithResult(intent.myVal)
}
}
}
Activity
The Activity subscribes to the LiveData and, on changes to state, it runs a render function using the state. The activity also passes user interactions to the view model as intents (not to be confused with Android's Intent class).
class MyActivity: AppCompatActivity() {
private val viewModel = MyViewModel()
override fun onCreateView() {
viewModel.state.observe(this, Observer { render(it) })
myWidget.onClickObserver = {
viewModel.instruct(someIntent)
}
}
private fun render(state: MyViewState) { /* update view with state */ }
}
Arrow.IO Functional Programming
I'm having trouble finding examples that aren't way over my head using Arrow's IO monad to make impure functions with side effects obvious and unit-testable.
View Model
So far I have turned my view model into:
class MyViewModel: ViewModel() {
// ...
fun instruct(intent: MyIntent): IO<Unit> {
return when(intent) {
is FirstIntent -> IO.fx {
val (result) = effect { myRoomRepository.suspendFunctionManipulatingDatabase(intent.myVal) }
updateStateWithResult(result)
}
is SecondIntent -> IO { updateStateWithResult(intent.myVal) }
}
}
}
I do not know how I am supposed to make this IO stuff run in Dispatcher.IO like I've been doing with viewModelScope.launch. I can't find an example for how to do this with Arrow. The ones that make API calls all seem to be something other than Android apps, so there is no guidance about Android UI vs IO threads.
View model unit test
Now, because one benefit I'm seeing to this is that when I write my view model's unit tests, I can have a test. If I mock the repository in order to check whether suspendFunctionManipulatingDatabase is called with the expected parameter.
#Test
fun myTest() {
val result: IO<Unit> = viewModel.instruct(someIntent)
result.unsafeRunSync()
// verify suspendFunctionManipulatingDatabase argument was as expected
}
Activity
I do not know how to incorporate the above into my Activity.
class MyActivity: AppCompatActivity() {
private val viewModel = MyViewModel()
override fun onCreateView() {
viewModel.state.observe(this, Observer { render(it) })
myWidget.onClickObserver = {
viewModel.instruct(someIntent).unsafeRunSync() // Is this how I should do it?
}
}
// ...
}
My understanding is anything in an IO block does not run right away (i.e., it's lazy). You have to call attempt() or unsafeRunSync() to get the contents to be evaluated.
Calling viewModel.instruct from Activity means I need to create some scope and invoke in Dispatchers.IO right? Is this Bad(TM)? I was able to confine coroutines completely to the view model using the "traditional" method.
Where do I incorporate Dispatchers.IO to replicate what I did with viewModelScope.launch(Dispatchers.IO)?
Is this the way you're supposed to structure a unit test when using Arrow's IO?

That's a really good post to read indeed. I'd also recommend digging into this sample app I wrote that is using ArrowFx also.
https://github.com/JorgeCastilloPrz/ArrowAndroidSamples
Note how we build the complete program using fx and returning Kind at all levels in our architecture. That makes the code polymorphic to the type F, so you can run it using different runtime data types for F at will, depending on the environment. In this case we end up running it using IO at the edges. That's the activity in this case, but could also be the application class or a fragment. Think about this as what'd be the entry points to your apps. If we were talking about jvm programs the equivalent would be main(). This is just an example of how to write polymorphic programs, but you could use IO.fx instead and return IO everywhere, if you want to stay simpler.
Note how we use continueOn() in the data source inside the fx block to leave and come back to the main thread. Coroutine context changes are explicit in ArrowFx, so the computation jumps to the passed thread right after the continueOn until you deliberately switch again to a different one. That intentionally makes thread changes explicit.
You could inject those dispatchers to use different ones in tests. Hopefully I can provide examples of this soon in the repo, but you can probably imagine how this would look.
For the syntax on how to write tests note that your program will return Kind (if you go polymorphic) or IO, so you would unsafeRunSync it from tests (vs unsafeRunAsync or unsafeRunAsyncCancellable in production code since Android needs it to be asynchronous). That is because we want our test to be synchronous and also blocking (for the latter we need to inject the proper dispatchers).
Current caveats: The solution proposed in the repo still doesn't care of cancellation, lifecycle or surviving config changes. That's something I'd like to address soon. Using ViewModels with a hybrid style might have a chance. This is Android so I'd not fear hybrid styles if that brings better productivity. Another alternative I've got in mind would maybe be something a bit more functional. ViewModels end up retaining themselves using the retain config state existing APIs under the hood by using the ViewModelStore. That ultimately sounds like a simple cache that is definitely a side effect and could be implemented wrapped into IO. I want to give a thought to this.
I would definitely also recommend reading the complete ArrowFx docs for better understanding: https://arrow-kt.io/docs/fx/ I think it would be helpful.
For more thoughts on approaches using Functional Programming and Arrow to Android you can take a look to my blog https://jorgecastillo.dev/ my plan is to write deep content around this starting 2020, since there's a lot of people interested.
In the other hand, you can find me or any other Arrow team maintainers in the Kotlinlang JetBrains Slack, where we could have more detailed conversations or try to resolve any doubts you can have https://kotlinlang.slack.com/
As a final clarification: Functional Programming is just a paradigm that resolves generic concerns like asynchrony, threading, concurrency, dependency injection, error handling, etc. Those problems can be found on any program, regardless of the platform. Even within an Android app. That is why FP is an option as valid for mobile as any other one, but we are still into explorations to provide the best APIs to fulfill the usual Android needs in a more ergonomic way. We are in the process of exploration in this sense, and 2020 is going to be a very promising year.
Hopefully this helped! Your thoughts seem to be well aligned with how things should work in this approach overall.

How is the Resource class correctly overwritten to implement a dynamic translation system?

Hello to all Android Developers, I need to clarify a doubt in relation to the management of dynamic resources in Android applications.
I need my application to use the translations returned by my backend depending on the language configured on the phone.
I wanted to implement it in an elegant way working on a custom LayoutInflater that applies a ViewTransformer depending on the type of graphic component.
Each ViewTransformer will only collect the identifier (for example #id/landing_welcome_text) and make the next call:
val value = attrs.getAttributeValue(index)
if (value != null && value.startsWith("#")) {
val text = view.context.resources.getString(attrs.getAttributeResourceValue(index, 0))
setTextForView(view, text)
}
A ContextWrapper has been implemented that returns my custom LayoutInflater and a Resource implementation
override fun getSystemService(name: String): Any {
return if (Context.LAYOUT_INFLATER_SERVICE == name)
CustomLayoutInflater(
LayoutInflater.from(baseContext),
this,
viewTransformerManager
)
else
super.getSystemService(name)
}
override fun getResources(): Resources = customResources
The problem is that overwriting the behavior of the Resources class is considered a deprecated strategy.
As the documentation says:
This constructor is deprecated. Resources should not be constructed by
apps. See Context.createConfigurationContext(Configuration).
class CustomResourcesWrapper constructor(
res: Resources,
private val languageStringRepo: ILanguageStringRepo
): Resources(res.assets, res.displayMetrics, res.configuration) {
#Throws(Resources.NotFoundException::class)
override fun getString(id: Int): String {
val value = getStringFromRepository(id)
return value ?: super.getString(id)
}
}
Does anyone know how I can get the same functionality without overwriting the Resources class?
Thank you very much for your help :)

I was looking into the same thing some time ago, in the end our team decided to go with Lokalise SDK.
From what I found out, overriding resources is the only way to do it. And even then it still doesn't cover all the cases, like mentioned in Lokalise documentation:
Some views are not supported when inflating from XML (Action bar, Menu
items, Android preferences, may be others), but you can still get the
latest translations via getString(), getText(), getQuantityString()
and other system methods, and set the content of these views
programmatically.
I saw a similar implementation in this library https://github.com/hamidness/restring although it wasn't nearly as complete as Lokalise. You can see how Lokalise is implemented if you include their library and switch to Project view in Android Studio, expand External Libraries and find com.lokalise.android, then you can see the decompiled .class files:
As for the constructor being deprecated - they deprecated it for the purpose of recreating the Resources when you need them for a different Configuration. But Context.createConfigurationContext doesn't let you override the source of the strings provided by resources, so I don't see any alternative.

Integrating Robolectric and Cucumber

I want to combine both Robolectric and Cucumber (JVM).
Currently I have two classes ActivityStepdefs where two step definitions for activity management are defined.
My second class is RoActivity Where for example an activity is created from it's class name, and where Robolectric will be used.
When I run RoActivityTest using RobolectricTestRunner the test in this class passes, but when I run RunCukesTest (class for running features as junit test) the code from RoActivity is not running as part of Robolectric, i.e. RunCukesTest search for features on my project and match it with a method inside ActivityStepdefs and finally this class will call a method from RoActivity
Is possible to run test with both junit both* runners?
I'm not sure but perhaps it's possible to do something like powermock, using junit rules.
In that case for which one should I have to define the rule?
*Cucumber and Robolectric

My small 5 cents.
Cucumber is mostly used for acceptance tests (correct me if you use it for unit testing) and Robolectric is mostly used for unit testing.
As for me, it is overkill to write cucumber during TDD. And Robolectric is still not android and I would run acceptance tests on real device or at least emulator.

I'am facing the same problem, after some google work, I got a solution:
#RunWith(ParameterizedRobolectricTestRunner::class)
#CucumberOptions( features = ["src/test/features/test.feature","src/test/features/others.feature"], plugin = ["pretty"])
class RunFeatures(val index: Int, val name:String) {
companion object {
#Parameters(name = "{1}")
#JvmStatic
fun features(): Collection<Array<Any>> {
val runner = Cucumber(RunFeatures::class.java)
Cucumber()
val children = runner.children
return children.mapIndexed{index, feature ->
arrayOf(index,feature.name)
}
}
}
#Test
fun runTest() {
val core = JUnitCore()
val feature = Cucumber(RunFeatures::class.java).children[index]!!
core.addListener(object: RunListener() {
override fun testFailure(failure: Failure?) {
super.testFailure(failure)
fail("$name failed:\n"+failure?.exception)
}
})
val runner = Request.runner(feature)
core.run(runner)
}
}
but seems not an pretty solution for me, can somebody help me out these problem:
must explicitly list all feature file path. but cannot use pattern such as *.feature
when failed cannot know which step failed.
parameter can only pass primitive type data,
I've get into cucumber source , but seems CucumberOptions inline Cucumber , I cannot pass it programmatically but can only use annotation .