It just occured to me that `MutableStateFlow` can be used for databinding. Did anyone try that yet?

# coroutines

[louiscad]

It just occured to me that MutableStateFlow can be used for databinding. Did anyone try that yet?

[wasyl]

Do you mean it’s automatically unwrapped just like LiveData?

[louiscad]

I meant MutableStateFlow (edited).

@wasyl I mean you can hand it to UI code, and it will get the current value, the updates, and be able to push a new value.

[streetsofboston]

Yup, we used it in one of our projects

[streetsofboston]

Ah.. sorry, we have used it for our Activities/Fragment, but not through the DataBinding framework (we used just plain code)

[louiscad]

When I say databinding, I'm not referring to any framework. It works on Android indeed, but could also work on Kotlin/JS, and on Kotlin/Native single-thread.

[streetsofboston]

Then, yes! 🙂

[streetsofboston]

On Android, the collector (Fragment/Activity) uses a scope with a PausingDispatcher to mimic the active/in-active behavior of the LiveData.

[streetsofboston]

We use our own version of an EventFlow and StateFlow on a prototype KMP project (targeting Android and iOS).

[Robert Jaros]

KVision allows using StateFlow for databinding with observable components. But I haven't used this functionality in any real project yet.

[andylamax]

@louiscad That sounds interesting, do you have some sort of a gist? or repo that I can check out? I'd really like to see how you guys implemented that

[louiscad]

@andylamax I have no gist at the moment, but the idea is to basically pass a MutableStateFlow to the part of the code that will manage the UI, or a part of it.

I pass it as part of a cancellable suspending function (for when that UI part needs to be disabled), and in that function, I collect the StateFlow with collectLatest or alike, update the UI, and wait for user interaction to input a new value that is then put into the same MutableStateFlow.

[Zach Klippenstein (he/him) [MOD]]

We're using it to emit (non-jetpack) view models from our state management library, Workflow