Jetpack Compose and Android Room compatibility

Question

I am trying to set up Android Room in my Jetpack Compose project. However, when trying to add...

kapt "androidx.room:room-compiler:2.2.3"

... to the app build.gradle dependencies. My build fails with the error...

e: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.jetbrains.kotlin.codegen.state.GenerationState$Builder.isIrBackend(Z)Lorg/jetbrains/kotlin/codegen/state/GenerationState$Builder;

Any insight as to why this is? Can we use Android Room with Jetpack Compose yet?

Answer 1

I'm pretty sure that we're still in a state where annotation processors (for Room, Retrofit, etc.) and the experimental Kotlin compiler are not getting along. The recommended approach at the moment is to isolate the Compose stuff in a module that is independent of modules that need annotation processors.

Answer 2

This is currently not supported as kapt does not play well with Jetpack Compose. This issue is being tracked here - https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/143232368

Answer 3

It's actually working, but not without some changes.

For a new project created with AndroidStudio 2020.3.1 Canary 2:

In build.gradle (Project): Downgrade compose_version to 1.0.0-alpha07 and ext.kotlin_version to 1.4.10 .

In build.gradle (Module):

Under composeOptions downgrade the composeCompilerVersion to 1.4.10 .

Under dependencies change " androidx.compose.ui :ui-tooling:$compose_version" to " androidx.ui :ui-tooling:$compose_version".

In Main activity - change the import for the preview, as it depends on ui-tooling.

Add room dependencies.

Should work.

However, some newer Compose functionalities won't probably work, as they are explicitly stating, that one should use Kotlin version 1.4.20 and above.