Struggling to Manage State with ViewModel and LiveData for Asynchronous API Calls in Android
In my internship, I've been tasked with developing an Android app that fetches and displays user data from a remote API... Currently, I’m trying to implement the ViewModel and LiveData architecture components to handle the asynchronous data loading, but I’m running into issues with state management when the API call fails. Here’s a brief overview of what I’ve done so far: 1. Set up a ViewModel to manage UI-related data: ```kotlin class UserViewModel : ViewModel() { private val _userLiveData = MutableLiveData<User>() val userLiveData: LiveData<User> get() = _userLiveData fun fetchUserData() { // Making an API call here } } ``` 2. Created a repository pattern to separate data access: ```kotlin class UserRepository { private val apiService = ApiService.create() suspend fun getUserData(): User { return apiService.getUser() } } ``` 3. In my ViewModel, I’m using Coroutines to fetch user data: ```kotlin fun fetchUserData() { viewModelScope.launch { try { val user = userRepository.getUserData() _userLiveData.postValue(user) } catch (e: Exception) { // Handle the error } } } ``` While the data is fetched correctly when everything goes smoothly, I'm unsure how to handle scenarios when the API call fails. I want to notify the UI about the error and possibly show a retry button. What would be the best practice for handling these error states? Should I create a separate LiveData for the error state? Or is there a way to handle this within the existing LiveData? Any insights or examples on managing error states elegantly with LiveData would be greatly appreciated. I'd be grateful for any help.