Usage of parceler (@Parcel) with Realm.io (Android)

[sam-ghosh]

I have the following code which produces the error: Error:Parceler: Unable to find read/write generator for type io.realm.Realm for io.realm.RealmObject.realm

It was working all fine without extends RealmObject , however I want to use Realm to put to database easily. Is there a way to exlcude the RealmObject fields and just use the basic pojo fields for @parcel?

    @Parcel
    public class Feed extends RealmObject{
        int id;
        public String text;
        public String time_created;
        String time_modified;
        int comments_count;
        int likes_count;
        String feed_type;
        int obj_id;
        String image;
        String user_name;
        String user_earthmile_points;
        boolean liked;
        boolean commented;
        boolean is_private;
        String url;
        int feed_creator_id;
  }

[johncarl81]

I have not looked into Realm deeply, but I'm disappointed to see it introduces a base class that you have to extend.

There's a couple of options here:

First, you could define a ParcelConverter that gives you the ability to define serialization manually.
Second, we (@loganj) have discussed adding a scan-limit to the processor which would allow you to tell the processor to stop and not process RealmObject or deeper. It seems that this would be the use case for such a feature.

Third, could you define your RealmObject as a wrapper instead (again, I'm nearly completely ignorant on Realm)?:

public class FeedRealmObject extends RealmObject {
    Feed feed;
}

@Parcel
public class Feed {
    //...
}

[johncarl81]

I figured I'd go ahead and implement the scan limit (#59) since it was a natural next step. I've also pushed this to 0.2.16-SNAPSHOT if you'd like to try it out.

[sam-ghosh]

Thanks, should it be in the Maven repo? What should i put in my build.girdle instead of
compile 'org.parceler:parceler:0.2.15'

Many thanks

[johncarl81]

You need to add the maven central snapshots repo:

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
    maven {
        url "https://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/snapshots/"
    }
}

And update the parceler dependency to:

compile 'org.parceler:parceler-api:0.2.16-SNAPSHOT'
provided 'org.parceler:parceler:0.2.16-SNAPSHOT'

Keep in mind that SNAPSHOTS are volatile... without notice I may redact the current functionality. That being said, give it a try and let me know if it works for you.

[sam-ghosh]

Thanks, i got an error saying:
Error:Could not find org.parceler:parceler-api:0.2.16-SNAPSHOT.
Required by:
TestAndroid:app:unspecified

[sam-ghosh]

Thanks, I found my mistake here : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20574111/add-maven-repository-to-build-gradle

[sam-ghosh]

Due to constraints with Realm, I need to put variables as public, while Parceler wants private (for speed)

So I need to do :

    @Parcel(analysisLimit = RealObject.class, Parcel.Serialization.METHOD )

is this the right syntax inside the bracket?

Thanks again

[johncarl81]

Looks about right:

@Parcel(value = Parcel.Serialization.METHOD, analysisLimit = RealmObject.class)

I'm not sure what you mean by Parceler wants private. Parceler will warn you that it will use reflection if using the Serialization.FIELD technique and it finds private fields. Can you clarify?

[sam-ghosh]

Apologies, I meant Realm.io wants the class properties to be private (and having getter/setter), while if I put private properties without Serialization.METHOD, Parceler won't accept. hence I need to put both the arguments inside the brackets for both packages (parceler, realm) to work

[johncarl81]

Oh OK, yes, Serialization.METHOD will follow the private fields & getter/setter Java Bean standard.

[johncarl81]

By the way, I think I'm going to change the name of this Serialization technique to Serialization.BEAN to better represent what standard it follows. Any thoughts on this? (#60)

[johncarl81]

@somghosh, how did this work out for you?

[sam-ghosh]

Thanks a lot @johncarl81 . I used it and it worked out from the Parceler point of view (meaning that the parcelling method stopped at the specified limit). So it works for simple Realm objects.

However, the JSON string I get from sever is as a compound Pojo (class inside a class) and hence things did not work from the Realm point of view. I would still encourage you to put this up as a revision, as for simple objects, Parceler can be used with Realm now.

Many thanks

[johncarl81]

Thinking about this more, we could do something like specify exactly what classes are analyzed, like so:

@Parcel(value = Parcel.Serialization.METHOD, analyze = {One.class, Three.class)
class One extends Two{}
class Two extends Three{}
class Three extends BaseClass{}

Which would offer even more flexability. What do you think @somghosh?

[ppamorim]

+1, not working with ActiveAndroid too.