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Overview of Paging in Android Architecture Components

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The Paging library allows you to load and show pages of data from a bigger dataset that is stored locally or over the network. This method helps your program to make better use of both network bandwidth and system resources. The Paging library’s components are built to fit into the suggested Android app architecture, interface well with other Jetpack components, and support Kotlin at its best.

Advantages of Using the Paging Library

The following functionalities are included in the Paging library:

  1. For your paged data, in-memory caching is available. This guarantees that your program makes efficient use of system resources while interacting with paged data.
  2. Request deduplication is built-in, ensuring that your app makes effective use of network traffic and system resources.
  3. Configurable As the user scrolls toward the end of the loaded data, RecyclerView adapters automatically request data.
  4. Support for Kotlin Coroutines and Flow, as well as LiveData and RxJava, is first-rate.
  5. Error handling features are built-in, including refresh and retry options.

The Paging Library Tautology

Set up in Android Project

Now let’s set up our Android Project to begin using the Paging Library. For that add the following dependencies to your Android app’s manifest to import Paging components.

Kotlin




dependencies {
  val paging_version = "3.0.0"
  
  implementation("androidx.paging:paging-runtime:$paging_version")
  
  // alternatively - without Android dependencies for tests
  testImplementation("androidx.paging:paging-common:$paging_version")


Paging Components in Kotlin

The Paging library works seamlessly with the Android app framework. The library’s components work in your app’s three layers:

  1. The repository layer is made up of several layers.
  2. The ViewModel layer is a type of view model.
  3. The user interface (UI) layer

#1: The layer of the repository

PagingSource is the repository layer’s major Paging library component. Each PagingSource object specifies a data source and how to retrieve data from it. Any single source, including network sources and local databases, can be loaded into a PagingSource object. RemoteMediator is another Paging library component that you might use. Paging from a layered data source, such as a network data source with a local database cache, is handled by a RemoteMediator object.

#2: Layer ViewModel

Based on a PagingSource object and a PagingConfig configuration object, the Pager component provides a public API for creating instances of PagingData that are presented in reactive streams. PagingData is the component that connects the ViewModel layer to the UI. A PagingData object is a container for paginated data snapshots. It does a search on a PagingSource object and saves the results.

#3: User Interface (UI) Layer

PagingDataAdapter, a RecyclerView adapter that handles paginated data, is the most important Paging library component in the UI layer. And that’s it for a quick short introduction to Paging in Android Components, hope this article sheds some light on the little-known points, and adding this would really benefit your project in the department of efficiency!


Last Updated : 19 Jun, 2021
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