Android kotlin task to be executed using coroutines

Question

As an example, I'm using FusedLocationProviderClient to access the current location, which returns a task which callback will eventually return the location. The method looks something like follows:

fun getLocation(callback: MyCallback){
    val flpc = LocationServices.getFusedLocationProviderClient(it)
    flpc.lastLocation.addOnSuccessListener {
        callback.onLocation(it)
    }
}

Is it possible to transform this so that I can use corroutines to suspend this function and wait for the task returned by flpc.lastLocation so I can return it in this method and this way get rid of that callback? For example something like this:

suspend fun getLocation(): Location? =
    withContext(Dispachers.IO){
        val flpc = LocationServices.getFusedLocationProviderClient(it)
        return@withContext flpc.lastLocation.result()
    }

My question is if there is something around coroutines where I can return the result of a Task (in this example, a Task<Location> )

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

The kotlinx-coroutines-play-services library has a Task<T>.await(): T helper.

import kotlinx.coroutines.tasks.await

suspend fun getLocation(): Location? = 
    LocationServices.getFusedLocationProviderClient(context).lastLocation.await()

Alternatively take a look at Blocking Tasks

It would be used the next way:

suspend fun getLocation(): Location? =
    withContext(Dispachers.IO){
        val flpc = LocationServices.getFusedLocationProviderClient(context)
        try{
            return@withContext Tasks.await(flpc.lastLocation)
        catch(ex: Exception){
            ex.printStackTrace()
        }
        return@withContext null
    }

Just to add to this example, for completion purposes, the call to getLocation() would be done the next way:

coroutineScope.launch(Dispatchers.Main) {
    val location = LocationReceiver.getLocation(context)
    ...
}

However this negates the benefits of coroutines by not leveraging the available callback and blocking a thread on the IO dispatcher and should not be used if the alternative is available.

Answer 2

Another way that I have don this that can also be used with any callback type interface is to use suspendCoroutine<T> {} .

So for this example it would be:

suspend fun getLocation(): Location? {
    return suspendCoroutine<Location?> { continuation ->
        val flpc = LocationServices.getFusedLocationProviderClient(it)
        flpc.lastLocation.addOnSuccessListener { location ->
            continuation.resume(location)
        }
        // you should add error listener and call 'continuation.resume(null)'
        // or 'continuation.resumeWith(Result.failure(exception))'
    }
}