AsyncAwait-Android

A library that provides the async/await concept for Android using the coroutines feature in Kotlin 1.1.

Install

AsyncAwait-Android is available on Maven Central. For Gradle users, add the following to your build.gradle, replacing x.x.x with the latest version:

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}
dependencies {
    testCompile "com.nhaarman:asyncawait-android:x.x.x"
}

AsyncAwait-Android uses the 1.1-M02 eap of Kotlin. See the How to try it section for details.

Example

A typical scenario is provided below:

fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
  super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)

  asyncUI {
    val textView = TextView(this@MainActivity)
    setContentView(textView)
    val githubUserName = await(retrieveGithubUser()).name
    textView.text = githubUserName
  }
}

fun retrieveGithubUser() = async<User> {
  ...
}

In this snippet the coroutine is suspended at await(retrieveGithubUser()), and resumed when the task returned by retrieveGithubUser() finishes. The coroutine is resumed on the main thread, as indicated by asyncUI.

How it works

Inspired by http://blog.stephencleary.com/2012/02/async-and-await.html.

An asynchronous method looks something like this:

fun foo() = async<String> {
  await(delay(1, SECONDS))
  "bar"
}

The call to async provides access to the await function, and changes the way the method is executed. It does not move the method call on another thread. The method is executed synchronously until the first call to await, which may result in an asynchronous call.

If the parameter provided to await has already completed, the method continuous running synchronously. If the parameter has not yet completed, await tells the awaitable to run the rest of the method when it completes, and then returns from the async method.

Later on, when the awaitable completes, it will execute the remainder of the async method. The thread on which the remainder is executed is determined by whether the async method was called by async or asyncUI

Async

There are two flavors of async: one that takes in a parameter (e.g. async<String>), and one that does not. The type passed to async determines the result type of the coroutine.

When using async, the coroutine will continue on the thread the awaitable ended on. For example, if you call await with a Task that is executed on some io thread, the remainder of the coroutine will continue on that io thread:

fun foo() = async {
  // Runs on calling thread
  await(someIoTask()) // someIoTask() runs on an io thread
  // Continues on the io thread
}

AsyncUI

If you want to modify UI elements, or do other things that require you to be on the main thread, you can use asyncUI. In contrast to async, asyncUI does continue on the main thread after a call to await:

// Runs on main thread
await(someIoTask()) // someIoTask() runs on an io thread
// Continues on the main thread

Await

Inside a coroutine, you can await on a Task or pass a lambda. Since async returns a Task, you can await on asynchronous methods. The return type of await is either the type parameter passed to Task or the return type of the lambda.

When awaiting on a Task<T>, there is no thread switching, unless specified explicitly by that task. When awaiting on a lambda, the lambda will be executed on another thread:

fun foo() = asyncUI {
  // Main thread
  var result = await(bar()) // bar() is executed on the main thread
  // Main thread
  result = await { // Lambda is executed on another thread
    "Bar"
  }
  // Main thread
}

fun bar() = async<String> {
  "Bar"
}

defHLT / AsyncAwait-Android