Hi there! I am switching to `kotlinx-coroutines 1....

# coroutines

[peekandpoke]

Hi there!
I am switching to kotlinx-coroutines 1.5.0 and this now has marked the GlobalScope as a delicate API.
I totally understand the reason behind this but I am somewhat stuck now. So my question is:

How can I create a CoroutineScope that I will then be reusing? I am doing this now:

val scope = CoroutineScope(EmptyCoroutineContext)

... and then I reuse this scope. Does this make any sense?

And similar in KotlinJS when using Flows we often times have code like this:

fun callApi() {
  GlobalScope.launch {
    api.getStuff().collect {  // collect() is a suspend function so it needs a coroutine scope
      ...
    }
  }
}

What would be a clean way to get a reusable coroutine scope here?

Thanks in advance!

[CLOVIS]

You shouldn't use GlobalScope to launch your API calls: that isn't structured concurrency.

If your API has some kind of authentication or whatever, one good solution would be to create a Job in the class that handles authentication, and use that one to launch. This way, you have a single object that can cancel all ongoing requests, if you need to.

[Robert Jaros]

https://kotlinlang.slack.com/archives/C1CFAFJSK/p1619479829137200

[peekandpoke]

Thank you for your answers. Good idea @CLOVIS .

One last question: How do a get a CoroutineScope if I need one. I want to avoid passing around the scope through the entire application. So is something like creating an internally used scope useful, like:

val scope = CoroutineScope(EmptyCoroutineContext)

How will this scope behave?

[CLOVIS]

What I usually do is have each component of the project that can launch stuff have their own scope. So Client has a scope, Authenticator as well, but pretty much everything doesn't (it just calls suspending function from the client, which use the client's scope). Each ‘scoped' class takes an optional parent job as a parameter, so the main function can declare a job that the whole application then depends on, so the main function can then cancel everything else when it's done with what it has to do

[peekandpoke]

How do you create the scope?

[peekandpoke]

Or how do you obtain the scope? @CLOVIS

[CLOVIS]

I just have a job per ‘scopped class' and call private val scope = CoroutineScope(job + <whatever dispatcher makes sense here>)

[peekandpoke]

Ok thank you very much! Will try something like this.

[steamstreet]

So I have a ton of component that execute network calls… basically they have access to a GraphQL instance that can be used to grab data for the component. Are you suggesting that each have a scope, and then pass scopes to all of them? This seems like a ton of extra work for a JS application.

[steamstreet]

I have considered some kind of GraphQL scope, which is a sort of global scope that all of these GraphQL operations would use.

[steamstreet]

The official docs appear to suggest using MainScope which I’m not at all sure what that is. https://play.kotlinlang.org/hands-on/Building%20Web%20Applications%20with%20React%20and%20Kotlin%20JS/08_Using_an_External_REST_API

[CLOVIS]

I don't know GraphQL, so I can't say for sure, but I assume you have some kind of ‘connect' method that connects to the server, then you do some operations with the connection, and then you disconnect when you're done.

If so, you can do something like:

class Client(..., parent: Job? = null) {
  private val scope = CoroutineScope(SupervisorJob(parent) + <http://Dispatchers.IO|Dispatchers.IO>)

// The rest of your class, with a 'send' method or whatever
  // When you need to launch you use the scope

fun close() {
    scope.cancel() // kills all ongoing requests
    // Your GraphQL closing logic
    ....
  }
}

// In some other file
fun Client.myRequest1(...) {
  ...
  // Uses Client.send, so it uses the client's scope
}

I'm not sure this pattern is recommended by the Kotlin team, but I've used it and it feels quite nice.