Hello, I am getting a response something like this...

# getting-started

[Somesh]

Hello, I am getting a response something like this where status, message & data keys will remain the same across the different API responses & only the content inside the data JSON object will change, in this example, I have a JSON object with a member key in other response I can have tournament key.

{
  "status": true,
  "message": "Success",
  "data": {
    "member": {
      "id": 21,
      "emailAddress": "<mailto:[e-mail]|[e-mail]>",
      "firstName": "ABC"
    }
  }
}

Currently, I am making use of generics and doing something like this

data class SignInResponse(
    val `data`: Data<Member>
) : BaseResponse()

and BaseResponse class has common JSON keys that I am getting, Here I'm using generics in data class passing the JSON class that is changing.

open class BaseResponse {
    val status: Boolean  = false
    val message: String  = UNDEFINED
}


@Keep
data class Data<T>(val actualData: T)

But this approach is incomplete because the above code will expect a JSON key actualData but here JSON key can be a member , tournament , or anything. How can I pass the class in Data class so that it can support the above JSON response?

[Roukanken]

hmm, I'm thinking that your model should be more like BaseResponse<T> which will also have val data: T member

and then you would be parsing DataResponse<SignInData> type, where SignInData would be whatever you want:

data class SignInData(
    val member: Member
)

[Roukanken]

not entirely sure what kind of parsing framework are you using, but you should be able to convince most of em to do it... especially if you know what T is before looking at json, which seem only dependent on what API you are calling

[Roukanken]

To show a bit more how it would work:

// Your framework
inline fun <reified T> parse(text: String): T = TODO()

// Model
data class BaseResponse<T> (
    val status: Boolean,
    val message: String,
    val data: T,
)

data class SignInData(
    val member: Member
)

data class TournamentData(
    val tournament: Tournament
)

// Parse
val signInResponse = parse<BaseResponse<SignInData>>("")
val tournamentResponse = parse<BaseResponse<TournamentData>>("")

// these will exists in the model
val tournament: Tournament = tournamentResponse.data.tournament
val member: Member = signInResponse.data.member

[Somesh]

@Roukanken I am using Gson with Retrofit and Your approach worked. I can't thank you enough. I have one more question.. because I really want to do the things right way.. Do you think that I am following right approach. because In these screenshot they are suggesting to follow different approach.

[Roukanken]

It depends on details imho.

If you are just using api like this, and every API call response has expected structure (eg, /api/signIn will give you will get you member in data, /api/tournament will get you tournament in data and so on) then imho this is the correct way.

I would question the API design though, and if you are controlling the other end, I would think of designing the API differently - eg smth like

data class SignIn(
    val info: BasicResponseInfo,
    val member: Member,
)

data class BasicResponseInfo(
    val status: Boolean,
    val message: String,
)

would be more friendly, or by using sealed classes to have Response.Error class and Response.Success
but these would need changes from the API side - if we are just fitting it to that API, then the one I showed ya is the best way imho.


Also if the responses can differ in structure based on parameters (eg, /api?getWhat=signIn, /api?getWhat=tournament, or similar) then I would look into sealed classes, but unsure if you can fit that without API changes - usually you need a "discriminator" so your JSON would need to have type field or similar:

"data": {
    "type": "Tournament",
    "tournament": ...
}

(PS: writing in Slack with code is so ugh, I hope it looks correct on your end, cause Slack is smacking me every 2 lines)

[Somesh]

If you are just using api like this...

Yes, This is how my API works.

I would question the API design though...

I have passed this to our API developer

writing in Slack with code is so ugh

Yes, same thing happed with me when I was writing the question

Thank you for all the help. 🙏🏽