Quick Introduction to Kotlin Coroutine for Android Dev

Quick introduction to Kotlin
Coroutine
Shuhei Shogen

What is this doc?
• Give you the basic idea of Coroutine
• Why is it needed?
• Syntax and its use case
• Coroutine in Android (only a little)

Overview of Kotlin
• Official page: https://kotlinlang.org/
• Developed by JetBrains Inc.
• Statically typed
• Latest version: 1.4.32 (as of 2021/4/13)
• https://www.slideshare.net/ShuheiShogen1/introduction-to-kotlin-
for-java-developer-168613075

Parallel processing
• A heavy process (like NW/DB access) might occupy a thread
• In case of Android, it will block the UI thread (-> ANR error)
• We need a way to process it in parallel with UI process
fun main() {
val data = fetchData() // Heavy process 1
saveData(data) // Heavy process 2
displayData(data)
}

Parallel processing is diﬃcult
• Threading?
• Difficult to deal with many threads
• Eat a lot of memory
fun main() {
val thread = thread { // Run the block in another thread
val data = fetchData()
saveData(data)
}
thread.join() // Wait until the thread is completed
displayData(data)
}

• Callback?
• Easily lead to complicated logics with deep nests (= callback hell)
// Modify it so that it will accept a callback method
fun fetchData(callback: Data -> Unit): Unit
fun saveData(data: Data, callback: Data -> Unit): Unit
fun main() {
fetchData { data -> { // Executed after fetchData is completed
saveData(data) { // Executed after saveData is completed
displayData(data)
}
}
}
}

• RxKotlin?
• Too many operators...
fun main() {
fetchData()
.flatMap { data -> {
saveData(data)
data
}
.subscribe { data -> displayData(data) }
}

• Coroutine
• Simple (we are using async/await syntax)
fun main() {
val deferredData = async { // "async" will start a coroutine and return a deferred object
val data = fetchData()
saveData(data)
data // Return value
}.await() // "Deferred<T>#await will wait until the target coroutine completes"
displayData(deferredData)
}

Kotlin Coroutine
• Coroutines are light-weight threads
• Suspendable/Cancellable in any part of the block
• Handy (-> Less chance of memory leak)
• Officially introduced in Kotlin 1.3

Thread 1
Coroutine v.s. Threading
Process 1
Threading
Coroutine
Process 3
IO wait IO wait
Thread 2 Process 2
Idle
Coroutine 1 Process 1 Process 3
Suspending Suspending
Coroutine 2 Process 2
IO wait Process 4
Suspending Process 4
Thread 1 Process 1 Process 2 Process 3 Process 4
Idle
Waste of resource
Eﬃcient use of threads :)

Set up
// build.gradle (app)
repositories {
mavenCentral()
}
// In case of a normal Kotlin app
dependencies {
implementation 'org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-core:1.4.3'
testImplementation 'org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-test:1.4.3'
}
// In case of Android
dependencies {
implementation 'org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-android:1.4.3'
implementation 'androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-viewmodel-ktx:2.2.0'
testImplementation 'org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-test:1.4.3'
}

Our first Coroutine
fun main() {
runBlocking { // Create a CoroutineScope and wait until all the Coroutines finish (Don't use it in production)
launch { // Run a Coroutine
println("1")
delay(1000L) // Suspend the Coroutine for 1000 ms
println("2")
}
launch { // Run a Coroutine
println("3")
}
}
}
---
1
3
2

CoroutineScope
• Scope (Block) in which a Coroutine is allowed to be run
• Initialized with CoroutineContext / by runBlocking function
fun main() {
val job = Job() // Coroutine Job
val coroutineDispatcher = Dispatcher.IO // Indicate the Coroutine will be executed in (preserved) IO threads
val coroutineContext = coroutineDispatcher + Job() // Create a CoroutineContext by combining job and dispatcher
val scope = CoroutineScope(coroutineContext) // Create a CoroutineScope from CoroutineContext
scope.launch {
println("1")
delay(1000L)
println("2")
}
scope.launch {
println("3")
}
}

async / await
• Return a Deferred<T> object that contains the result of Coroutine (v.s. launch returns a Coroutine Job)
• Useful if you want the result value of a heavy process
fun main() {
runBlocking {
val deferred1 = async { // Deferred<Int>
delay(1000L)
1
}
val deferred2 = async {// Deferred<Int>
delay(2000L)
2
}
println(deferred1.await() + deferred2.await()) // Wait until both Coroutines are completed (for 2000 ms)
}
}
---
3

Suspending function
• A function that can be suspended in the context of Coroutine
• Suspending function can be called only either in a Coroutine or in (another) suspending function
• delay() and await() are suspending functions
// Wrong
fun simulateWorkload() {
delay(1000L) // Compliration error
}
---
// Correct
suspend fun simulateWorkload() {
delay(1000L)
}
GlobalScope.launch {
simulateWorkload() // A suspending function can be called in a Coroutine
}

Test your Coroutine
• Use TestCoroutineDispatcher
class MyRepository(
private val coroutineDispatcher: CoroutineDispatcher
) {
fun fetchData(): List<Data> {
withContext(coroutineDispatcher) {
// Do heavy IO process
return dataList
}
}
}
class MyRepositoryTest {
private val testDispatcher = TestCoroutineDispatcher()
@Test
fun testFetchData() {
testDispatcher.runBlockingTest {
// Mock dependencies if needed
val repository = MyRepository(testDispatcher)
val expected = ... // Define the expected value
val actual = repository.fetchData
assertThat(expected, `is`(actual))
}
}
}

Coroutine in Android app
• AndroidX lifecycle has viewModelScope in ViewModel
• This CoroutineScope will be automatically cancelled when the ViewModel is destroyed
class MyViewModel(
private val myRepository: MyRepository,
private val coroutineDispatcher: CoroutineDispatcher = Dispatcher.Main
) : ViewModel {
fun loadData() {
viewModelScope.launch { // This scope will be cancelled when MyViewModel is destroyed (= Less chance of memory leak)
val someData = myRepository.fetchData()
// UI update
}
}
}
class MyRepository(
private val coroutineDispatcher: CoroutineDispatcher = Dispatcher.IO
)
suspend fun fetchData(): List<SomeData> {
withContext(coroutineDispatcher) { // Change CoroutineContext to change the thread to be run
// ...
}
}
}

Take away
• Corourtines can be used to handle parallel processing easily
• Android has some supports for Coroutine

Topics not covered in these slides
• Detail explanation about CoroutineScope/CoroutineContext/
CoroutineDispatcher
• Error handling in Coroutine
• Kotlin Flow and its Android support

Referrences
• Kotlin Coroutine guide
• https://kotlinlang.org/docs/coroutines-guide.html
• Kotlin coroutines on Android
• https://developer.android.com/kotlin/coroutines
• 詳解 Kotlin Coroutines
• https://zenn.dev/at_sushi_at/books/edf63219adfc31

Quick Introduction to Kotlin Coroutine for Android Dev

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