stated_result

A library built upon Bloc_Flutter and Provider to make it easy to support async operation

This library includes 4 sub-modules:

Multi-State Result

The library includes 4 different types of MultiStateResult, each has a different state to indicates its internal state. The type is an immutable data type, and can be pattern matched like enum.

• ActionResult: A result has 2 states: Completed and Failed. It can be used to represents the result of action without return value.
• AsyncActionResult: A result has 4 states: Pending, Waiting, Completed, and Failed. It represents the full lifecycle of an async action without a return value.
• QueryResult<T>: A result has 2 states: Succeeded and Failed, in which Succeeded would hold a value of given type T. It represents the result of a query that returns a certain type of data.
• AsyncQueryResult<T>: A result has 4, states: Pending, Waiting, Suceeded, and Failed. It represents a full lifecycle of a query that returns a certain type of data. Potentially, an extra state Default can be used. It is like Pending - indicates the query hasn't been started, but also holds a value like Succeeded. It can be used to indicate the scenario where the app provides default value as optimistic updates.

How it works

Typically, the result can be used to represent the result of an async operation, such as calling API or loading data from DB, or time consuming data processing.

Typically, the result itself should be AsyncActionResult or AsyncQueryResult, depends on whether the app cares about the return value or not, and UI would render accordingly, such as loading screen error screen or the successful screen.

The query/action itself would be represented as Future<QueryResult>/Future<ActionResult>, which can be used to update AsyncQueryResult and AsyncActionResult accordingly.

Typically, AsyncActionResult would be held by a Bloc or ValueNotifier, which will be discussed below.

Convert Sync Result to Async Result

asAsyncResult can convert sync result into its async counterpart accordingly.

AsyncActionResult asyncActionResult = actionResult.asAsyncResult();

AsyncQueryResult asyncQueryResult = queryResult.asAsyncResult();

Convert Future Types

Future.asActionResult can materialise any future into Future<ActionResult>. The new future would always fulfill. If the original future fails, it captures the error into a FailedResult accordingly.

Future<ActionResult>.asActionResult would flatten the hierarchy and respect the failed value from the original future.

Future<T>.asQueryResult would materialise the future of T into Future<QueryResult<T>>. The new future would always fulfill. If original future fails it captures the error into a FailedResult accordingly.

Multi-State Result Builder

MultiStateResult type provides map and/or mapOr method to pattern match and map the value, which can be used to build UI manually.

ActionResultBuilder and QueryResultBuilder

In practice, ActionResultBuilder and QueryResultBuilder provided by this library can be more convenient, with few extra features.

ActionResultBuilder and QueryResultBuilder accept different builder function to build the UI according to the state of the AsyncActionResult or the AsyncQueryResult.

A simple example:

Widget build(BuildContext context, AsyncActionResult result) =>
  ActionResultBuilder(
      result: result,
      pendingBuilder: (_context) => Center(child: Text("No Data")),
      waitingBuilder:  (_context) => Center(child: CircularProgressIndicator()),
      failedBuilder: (_context, error, _stackTrace) => Center(
        child: Text("Error: $error"),
      ),
      completedBuilder: (_context) => Center(child: Text("Completed")),
  );

Non critical state default builders

For ActionResultBuilder and QueryResultBuilder, builder is considered as a critical builder, which is mandatory each time the widget is instantiated, while pendingBuilder, waitingBuilder, and failedBuilder are optional and can be omitted.

When the given builder is omitted, the ResultBuilder will search the widget hierarchy to find any default builder that has been given. Just like Text would search DefaultTextStyle if textStyle is not explicitly given.

Accordingly, DefaultPendingResultBuilder, DefaultWaitingResultBuilder, and DefaultFailedResultBuilder can be used to provide those default builders to their children along the widget tree.

DefaultResultBuilder

If more than one default builder needs to be configured, rather than nested DefaultXXXResultBuilder, which results in a relatively ugly code, DefaultResultBuilder can be used, which allow configuring multiple default builders at once.

DefaultResultBuilder can be used to set up the unified UI style of a portion of the screen.

Global default builders

If optional builders are omitted and no default builders are given, the ResultBuilder widget would use something called global default builder to render the UI.

Which can be set up via

• DefaultPendingResultBuilder.globalBuilder
• DefaultWaitingResultBuilder.globalBuilder
• DefaultFailedResultBuilder.globalBuilder

It also can be configured in batch via DefaultResultBuilder.setGlobalBuilder

Bloc Integration

Library provided the classes to integrate the MultiStateResult to Bloc

This library uses Cubit instead of Bloc, which is a simplified and easier-to-use Bloc.

• ActionCubit: A Cubit holds AsyncActionResult, it also provides protected methods to update its value from different kinds of Future
• QueryCubit<T>: A Cubit holds AsyncQueryResult<T>, it also provides protected methods to update its value from different kinds of Future

Both ActionCubit and QueryCubit can be provided to the widget tree via BlocProvider

Bloc Builder and Bloc Consumer

Like BlocBuilder and BlocConsumer provided by Bloc_Flutter library, the following types are provided:

• ActionBlocBuilder: BlocBuilder that consumes ActionCubit via ActionResultBuilder
• ActionBlocConsumer: BlocConsumer that consumes ActionCubit via ActionResultBuilder
• QueryBlocBuilder: BlocBuilder that consumes QueryCubit via QueryResultBuilder
• QueryBlocConsumer: BlocConsumer that consumes QueryCubit via QueryResultBuilder

ValueNotifier Integration

Besides Cubit, this library also provides the integration to ValueNotifier and ListenableBuilder.

• ActionNotifier: A ValueNotifier holds AsyncActionResult, it also provides protected methods to update its value from different kinds of Future
• QueryNotifier<T>: A ValueNotifier holds AsyncQueryResult<T>, it also provides protected methods to update its value from different kinds of Future

Listenable Builder

Like ListenableBuilder, the following classes are provided:

• ActionListenableBuilder: ListenableBuilder that consumes ActionNotifier via ActionResultBuilder
• QueryListenableBuilder: ListenableBuilder that consumes QueryNotifier via QueryResultBuilder

Deal with an empty list or nullable value

It could be kind of annoying to build a ListView/GridView from a List, which could be empty, or to build UI from a field of a JSON that could be null. EmptyableContentBuilder is the widget designed to deal with those cases.

Widget build(BuildContext context) {
  return QueryBlocBuilder(
    bloc: context.read<MyStringListBloc>(),
    builder: (_, list) => EmptyableContentBuilder(
      value: list,
      emptyBuilder: (_) => Center(child: Text("List is empty")),
      builder: (_, list) => ListView.builder(
        itemCount: list.length,
        itemBuilder: (_, index) => ItemWidget(item: list[index]),
      ),
    );
  )
}

EmptyableContentBuilder supports empty checking for List Map Iterable and String by default, it treats null as empty too. To make BlankableBuilder work with other types, blankChecker checker can be provided.