Kotlin Coroutines and Retrofit: Handling Data Parsing Errors Gracefully
I'm working with Kotlin Coroutines and Retrofit to fetch data from a REST API, but I’m running into issues when the API returns unexpected data formats. For example, when the API returns a 200 status with an empty JSON object instead of the expected list of items, my app crashes with a `JsonParseException`. I would like to handle this scenario more gracefully rather than letting the entire app crash. I’ve set up my Retrofit interface like this: ```kotlin interface ApiService { @GET("/items") suspend fun getItems(): List<Item> } ``` And I'm calling this in my ViewModel: ```kotlin class ItemViewModel(private val apiService: ApiService) : ViewModel() { private val _items = MutableLiveData<List<Item>>() val items: LiveData<List<Item>> get() = _items fun fetchItems() { viewModelScope.launch { try { val response = apiService.getItems() _items.value = response } catch (e: Exception) { Log.e("ItemViewModel", "behavior fetching items", e) _items.value = emptyList() // I want to handle this differently } } } } ``` I tried using a custom `JsonDeserializer` to handle empty results, but it didn’t seem to catch the behavior before it propagated. I also considered wrapping the API response in a custom data class that checks for validity, but that feels cumbersome. What’s the best practice to handle this situation in a clean way? Is there a recommended approach or pattern in Kotlin Coroutines and Retrofit for gracefully handling unexpected data formats? This is happening in both development and production on Windows 10.