alvinthen / provider

InheritedWidgets, but simple

A mixture between dependency injection (DI) and state management, built with widgets for widgets.

It purposefully uses widgets for DI/state management instead of dart-only classes like Stream. The reason is, widgets are very simple yet robust and scalable.

By using widgets for state management, provider can guarantee:

• maintainability, through a forced uni-directional data-flow
• testability/composability, since it is always possible to mock/override a value
• robustness, as it is harder to forget to handle the update scenario of a model/widget

To read more about provider, see the documentation.

Migration from v3.x.0 to v4.0.0

• The parameters builder and initialBuilder of providers are removed.

  • initialBuilder should be replaced by create.
  • builder of "proxy" providers should be replaced by update
  • builder of classical providers should be replaced by create.

• The new create/update callbacks are lazy-loaded, which means they are called the first time the value is read instead of the first time the provider is created.

  If this is undesired, you can disable lazy-loading by passing lazy: false to the provider of your choice:

  FutureProvider(
    create: (_) async => doSomeHttpRequest(),
    lazy: false,
    child: ...
  )

• ProviderNotFoundError is renamed to ProviderNotFoundException.

• The SingleChildCloneableWidget interface is removed and replaced by a new kind of widget SingleChildWidget.

  See this issue for details on how to migrate.

• Selector now deeply compares the previous and new values if they are collections.

  If this is undesired, you can revert to the old behavior by passing a shouldRebuild parameter to Selector:

  Selector<Selected, Consumed>(
    shouldRebuild: (previous, next) => previous == next,
    builder: ...,
  )

• DelegateWidget and its family is removed. Instead, for custom providers, directly subclass InheritedProvider or an existing provider.

Usage

Exposing a value

Exposing a new object instance

Providers allows to not only expose a value, but also create/listen/dispose it.

To expose a newly created object, use the default constructor of a provider. Do not use the .value constructor if you want to create an object, or you may otherwise have undesired side-effects.

See this stackoverflow answer which explains in further details why using the .value constructor to create values is undesired.

• DO create a new object inside create.

Provider(
  create: (_) => new MyModel(),
  child: ...
)

• DON'T use Provider.value to create your object.

ChangeNotifierProvider.value(
  value: new MyModel(),
  child: ...
)

• DON'T create your object from variables that can change over the time.

  In such situation, your object would never be updated when the value changes.

int count;

Provider(
  create: (_) => new MyModel(count),
  child: ...
)

If you want to pass variables that can change over time to your object, consider using ProxyProvider:

int count;

ProxyProvider0(
  update: (_, __) => new MyModel(count),
  child: ...
)

Reusing an existing object instance:

If you already have an object instance and want to expose it, you should use the .value constructor of a provider.

Failing to do so may call the dispose method of your object when it is still in use.

• DO use ChangeNotifierProvider.value to provide an existing ChangeNotifier.

MyChangeNotifier variable;

ChangeNotifierProvider.value(
  value: variable,
  child: ...
)

• DON'T reuse an existing ChangeNotifier using the default constructor

MyChangeNotifier variable;

ChangeNotifierProvider(
  create: (_) => variable,
  child: ...
)

Reading a value

The easiest way to read a value is by using the static method Provider.of<T>(BuildContext context).

This method will look up in the widget tree starting from the widget associated with the BuildContext passed and it will return the nearest variable of type T found (or throw if nothing is found).

Combined with the first example of exposing a value, this widget will read the exposed String and render "Hello World."

class Home extends StatelessWidget {
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Text(
      Don't forget to pass the type of the object you want to obtain to `Provider.of`!
      Provider.of<String>(context)
    );
  }
}

Alternatively instead of using Provider.of, we can use Consumer and Selector.

These can be useful for performance optimizations or when it is difficult to obtain a BuildContext descendant of the provider.

See the FAQ or the documentation of Consumer and Selector for more information.

MultiProvider

When injecting many values in big applications, Provider can rapidly become pretty nested:

Provider<Something>(
  create: (_) => Something(),
  child: Provider<SomethingElse>(
    create: (_) => SomethingElse(),
    child: Provider<AnotherThing>(
      create: (_) => AnotherThing(),
      child: someWidget,
    ),
  ),
),

To:

MultiProvider(
  providers: [
    Provider<Something>(create: (_) => Something()),
    Provider<SomethingElse>(create: (_) => SomethingElse()),
    Provider<AnotherThing>(create: (_) => AnotherThing()),
  ],
  child: someWidget,
)

The behavior of both examples is strictly the same. MultiProvider only changes the appearance of the code.

ProxyProvider

Since the 3.0.0, there is a new kind of provider: ProxyProvider.

ProxyProvider is a provider that combines multiple values from other providers into a new object, and sends the result to Provider.

That new object will then be updated whenever one of the providers it depends on updates.

The following example uses ProxyProvider to build translations based on a counter coming from another provider.

Widget build(BuildContext context) {
  return MultiProvider(
    providers: [
      ChangeNotifierProvider(create: (_) => Counter()),
      ProxyProvider<Counter, Translations>(
        create: (_, counter, __) => Translations(counter.value),
      ),
    ],
    child: Foo(),
  );
}

class Translations {
  const Translations(this._value);

  final int _value;

  String get title => 'You clicked $_value times';
}

It comes under multiple variations, such as:

• ProxyProvider vs ProxyProvider2 vs ProxyProvider3, ...

  That digit after the class name is the number of other providers that ProxyProvider depends on.

• ProxyProvider vs ChangeNotifierProxyProvider vs ListenableProxyProvider, ...

  They all work similarly, but instead of sending the result into a Provider, a ChangeNotifierProxyProvider will send its value to a ChangeNotifierProvider.

FAQ

I have an exception when obtaining Providers inside initState. What can I do?

This exception happens because you're trying to listen to a provider from a life-cycle that will never ever be called again.

It means that you either should use another life-cycle (didChangeDependencies/build), or explicitly specify that you do not care about updates.

As such, instead of:

initState() {
  super.initState();
  print(Provider.of<Foo>(context).value);
}

you can do:

Value value;

didChangeDependencies() {
  super.didChangeDependencies();
  final value = Provider.of<Foo>(context).value;
  if (value != this.value) {
    this.value = value;
    print(value);
  }
}

which will print value whenever it changes.

Alternatively you can do:

initState() {
  super.initState();
  print(Provider.of<Foo>(context, listen: false).value);
}

Which will print value once and ignore updates.

I use ChangeNotifier and I have an exception when I update it, what happens?

This likely happens because you are modifying the ChangeNotifier from one of its descendants while the widget tree is building.

A typical situation where this happens is when starting an http request, where the future is stored inside the notifier:

initState() {
  super.initState();
  Provider.of<Foo>(context).fetchSomething();
}

This is not allowed, because the modification is immediate.

Which means that some widgets may build before the mutation, while other widgets will build after the mutation. This could cause inconsistencies in your UI and is therefore not allowed.

Instead, you should perform that mutation in a place that would affect the entire tree equally:

• directly inside the create of your provider/constructor of your model:

  class MyNotifier with ChangeNotifier {
    MyNotifier() {
      _fetchSomething();
    }
  
    Future<void> _fetchSomething() async {}
  }

  This is useful when there's no "external parameter".

• asynchronously at the end of the frame:

  initState() {
    super.initState();
    Future.microtask(() =>
      Provider.of<Foo>(context).fetchSomething(someValue);
    );
  }

  It is slightly less ideal, but allows passing parameters to the mutation.

Do I have to use ChangeNotifier for complex states?

No.

You can use any object to represent your state. For example, an alternate architecture is to use Provider.value() combined with a StatefulWidget.

Here's a counter example using such architecture:

class Example extends StatefulWidget {
  const Example({Key key, this.child}) : super(key: key);

  final Widget child;

  @override
  ExampleState createState() => ExampleState();
}

class ExampleState extends State<Example> {
  int _count;

  void increment() {
    setState(() {
      _count++;
    });
  }

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Provider.value(
      value: _count,
      child: Provider.value(
        value: this,
        child: widget.child,
      ),
    );
  }
}

where we can read the state by doing:

return Text(Provider.of<int>(context).toString());

and modify the state with:

return FloatingActionButton(
  onPressed: Provider.of<ExampleState>(context).increment,
  child: Icon(Icons.plus_one),
);

Alternatively, you can create your own provider.

Can I make my own Provider?

Yes. provider exposes all the small components that makes a fully fledged provider.

This includes:

• SingleChildCloneableWidget, to make any widget works with MultiProvider.
• InheritedProvider, the generic InheritedWidget obtained when doing Provider.of.
• DelegateWidget/BuilderDelegate/ValueDelegate to help handle the logic of "MyProvider() that creates an object" vs "MyProvider.value() that can update over time".

Here's an example of a custom provider to use ValueNotifier as state: https://gist.github.com/rrousselGit/4910f3125e41600df3c2577e26967c91

My widget rebuilds too often, what can I do?

Instead of Provider.of, you can use Consumer/Selector.

Their optional child argument allows to rebuild only a very specific part of the widget tree:

Foo(
  child: Consumer<A>(
    builder: (_, a, child) {
      return Bar(a: a, child: child);
    },
    child: Baz(),
  ),
)

In this example, only Bar will rebuild when A updates. Foo and Baz won't unnecesseraly rebuild.

To go one step further, it is possible to use Selector to ignore changes if they don't have an impact on the widget-tree:

Selector<List, int>(
  selector: (_, list) => list.length,
  builder: (_, length, __) {
    return Text('$length');
  }
);

This snippet will rebuild only if the length of the list changes. But it won't unnecessarily update if an item is updated.

Can I obtain two different providers using the same type?

No. While you can have multiple providers sharing the same type, a widget will be able to obtain only one of them: the closest ancestor.

Instead, you must explicitly give both providers a different type.

Instead of:

Provider<String>(
  create: (_) => 'England',
  child: Provider<String>(
    create: (_) => 'London',
    child: ...,
  ),
),

Prefer:

Provider<Country>(
  create: (_) => Country('England'),
  child: Provider<City>(
    create: (_) => City('London'),
    child: ...,
  ),
),

Existing providers

provider exposes a few different kinds of "provider" for different types of objects.

The complete list of all the objects availables is here

name	description
Provider	The most basic form of provider. It takes a value and exposes it, whatever the value is.
ListenableProvider	A specific provider for Listenable object. ListenableProvider will listen to the object and ask widgets which depend on it to rebuild whenever the listener is called.
ChangeNotifierProvider	A specification of ListenableProvider for ChangeNotifier. It will automatically call ChangeNotifier.dispose when needed.
ValueListenableProvider	Listen to a ValueListenable and only expose ValueListenable.value.
StreamProvider	Listen to a Stream and expose the latest value emitted.
FutureProvider	Takes a Future and updates dependents when the future completes.