connecteo 1.0.1

A plugin that wraps connectivity_plus and adds some additionnal data connection checks.

connecteo

A plugin that wraps connectivity_plus and adds some checks that guarantee connection to the internet.

Contents

• Motivation
• Setup
• How it works
• Usage
  • ConnectionChecker init
  • connectionStream
  • isConnected
  • connectionType
  • untilConnects

Motivation

connectivity_plus is a great package for checking internet status but comes with a single flaw - it checks only the connection type, not the internet connection data. It means that it can not guarantee you connection data, for example, when being under a Wifi access which does not have the internet connection. In such a scenario, the network requests will fail when theoretically they shouldn't due to being online.

A purpose of the plugin was to add some extra checks, on top on existing connectivity_plus's API, that make sure our connection to the internet is reliable when we are online.

Setup

You can install the package from your project's terminal:

flutter pub add connecteo

or add the dependency manually inside your pubspec.yaml:

dependencies:
  connecteo: # desired version

Then you can use connecteo's ConnectionChecker class wherever you want:

import 'package:connecteo/connecteo.dart';

final connecteo = ConnectionChecker();
// Sample checking the internet connection
final hasInternetConnection = await connecteo.isConnected;

How it works

The statement about reliable internet connection is true when all these conditions are met:

• A new (or previous) connection type is the online one - it is a kind of self explanatory. The connection type can not be neither .none nor .unknown. Every other type is classified as the online.
• A socket connection has to be opened and successfully checked over DNS port (53) against at least one IP address - ConnectionChecker defines a default list of IP addresses which are globally available DNS resolvers. During connection check (and right after checking the above connection type), all addresses are pinged. When at least one socket connection will succeed with its IP address, the information about successful connection is being returned, signalizing the data connection. On the other hand, when all the socket connection trials will fail, then the ConnectionChecker informs about lack of internet connection.
• (optional) a response from the provided Base Url address has to be successful - if host address for the Base Url was provided in ConnectionChecker constructor, the host lookup is being made against the Base Url. If the lookup process will finish successfully without any SocketException then the condition is being met. This check was dictated by cases where an internet connection got back from an offline state but the requests to the Base Url were failing for the first few seconds. It was causing some confusions because in majority of cases, we expect successful requests once connection gets back to online.

Usage

ConnectionChecker init

There are a couple of parameters (with its default values) that the ConnectionChecker's constructor takes - you can modify them to suit your needs:

• checkHostReachability - let's you specify if you want to open a socket connection to the list of addresses (checkAddresses). Its default value is set to true.
• checkAddresses - a list of custom InternetAddress which will be used to open the socket connections. The default list contains from three addresses: CloudFlare (1.1.1.1), Google (8.8.4.4) and OpenDNS (208.67.222.222).
• checkOverDnsTimeout - let's you specify the Duration which is being used for the timeout for each InternetAddress and its socket's opening. The default value is 3 seconds.
• baseUrlLookupAddress - a String URL which indicates the address you want to lookup during connection checks. Once you provide your URL, the connectionStream and isConnected will return true values only after successful host lookup. Its default value is null.
• requestInterval - it is a Duration which is being used for the interval how often the internet connection status should be refreshed. By default its value is set to 3 seconds.
• failureAttempts - the number of maximum trials between changing the online to offline state.When the lost connection won't go back after number of failureAttempts, the connectionStream and isConnected will return false values until connection get back. The default value is set to 4 attempts.

Example:

final connecteo = ConnectionChecker(
    checkHostReachability: true,
    checkAddresses: [
        InternetAddress(
            '1.0.0.1', // CloudFlare
            type: InternetAddressType.IPv4,
        ),
        InternetAddress(
            '208.67.220.220', // OpenDNS
            type: InternetAddressType.IPv4,
        ),
    ],
    checkOverDnsTimeout: Duration(seconds: 5),
    baseUrlLookupAddress: 'https://pub.dev/',
    failureAttempts: 7,
    requestInterval: Duration(seconds: 5),
);

get connectionStream

Returns the reliable internet connection status with the help of Stream<bool>. It yields its value every time when connection type will change or desired interval (ConnectionChecker's constructor argument) will pass.

Example:

final connecteo = ConnectionChecker();

final subscription = connecteo.connectionStream.listen((isConnected) {
    if (isConnected) {
        // Handle the logic when the app is online
    } else {
        // Handle the logic when the app is offline
    }
});

get isConnected

Returns the actual, reliable internet connection status for the present moment. Similar to above, but its return type is Future<bool>.

Example:

final connecteo = ConnectionChecker();

final hasInternetConnection = await connecteo.isConnected;
if (hasInternetConnection) {
    // Handle the one-time check when the app is online
}

get connectionType

Returns the current connection type.

Example:

final connecteo = ConnectionChecker();

final type = await connecteo.connectionType;
if (type == ConnectionType.mobile) {
    // Handle the logic when the application uses cellular data
}

untilConnects()

A method which resolves as soon as internet connection status get back from offline state. Handy when you want to trigger some kind of action once, after internet data connection get back but you do not want to use the connectionStream.

Example:

final connecteo = ConnectionChecker();

connecteo.untilConnects().then((_) {
    // Handle the logic when the internet connection data get back
});

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For more detailed information about the package possibilities, visit the API documentation.