Android room persistent library - how to insert class that has a List object field

Question

In Android room persistent library how to insert entire Model object into table which has in itself another list.

Let me show you what i mean :

@Entity(tableName = TABLE_NAME)
public class CountryModel {

    public static final String TABLE_NAME = "Countries";

    @PrimaryKey
    private int idCountry;

    private List<CountryLang> countryLang = null;

    public int getIdCountry() {
        return idCountry;
    }

    public void setIdCountry(int idCountry) {
        this.idCountry = idCountry;
    }

    public String getIsoCode() {
        return isoCode;
    }

    public void setIsoCode(String isoCode) {
        this.isoCode = isoCode;
    }

    /** 
        here i am providing a list of coutry information how to insert 
        this into db along with CountryModel at same time 
    **/
    public List<CountryLang> getCountryLang() {
        return countryLang;
    }

    public void setCountryLang(List<CountryLang> countryLang) {
        this.countryLang = countryLang;
    }
}

my DAO looks like this:

@Dao
public interface CountriesDao{

    @Query("SELECT * FROM " + CountryModel.TABLE_NAME +" WHERE isoCode =:iso_code LIMIT 1")
    LiveData<List<CountryModel>> getCountry(String iso_code);

    @Query("SELECT * FROM " + CountryModel.TABLE_NAME )
    LiveData<List<CountryModel>> getAllCountriesInfo();

    @Insert(onConflict = REPLACE)
    Long[] addCountries(List<CountryModel> countryModel);

    @Delete
    void deleteCountry(CountryModel... countryModel);

    @Update(onConflict = REPLACE)
    void updateEvent(CountryModel... countryModel);
}

When i call database.CountriesDao().addCountries(countryModel); i get the following room db compile error: Error:(58, 31) error: Cannot figure out how to save this field into database. You can consider adding a type converter for it.

should there be another table called CountryLang ? and if so how to tell room to connect them on insert statement ?

The CountryLang object itself looks like this:

public class CountryLang {


    private int idCountry;

    private int idLang;

    private String name;

    public int getIdCountry() {
        return idCountry;
    }

    public void setIdCountry(int idCountry) {
        this.idCountry = idCountry;
    }

    public int getIdLang() {
        return idLang;
    }

    public void setIdLang(int idLang) {
        this.idLang = idLang;
    }

    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }

    public void setName(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }

}

the response looks like this:

"country_lang": [
      {
        "id_country": 2,
        "id_lang": 1,
        "name": "Austria"
      }
    ]

For every country so its not going to be more then one item here. Im comfortable desgning it for just one item in the country_lang list. So i can just make a table for country_lang and then some how link it to CountryModel. but how ? can i use foreign key ? i was hoping i did not have to use a flat file. so your saying i have to store it as json ? Is it recommended not to use room for temporary ? what to use instead ?

Answer 1

You can easly insert the class with list object field using TypeConverter and GSON,

public class DataConverter {

    @TypeConverter
    public String fromCountryLangList(List<CountryLang> countryLang) {
        if (countryLang == null) {
            return (null);
        }
        Gson gson = new Gson();
        Type type = new TypeToken<List<CountryLang>>() {}.getType();
        String json = gson.toJson(countryLang, type);
        return json;
    }

    @TypeConverter
    public List<CountryLang> toCountryLangList(String countryLangString) {
        if (countryLangString == null) {
            return (null);
        }
        Gson gson = new Gson();
        Type type = new TypeToken<List<CountryLang>>() {}.getType();
        List<CountryLang> countryLangList = gson.fromJson(countryLangString, type);
        return countryLangList;
    }
 }

Next, Add the @TypeConverters annotation to the AppDatabase class

    @Database(entities = {CountryModel.class}, version = 1)
    @TypeConverters({DataConverter.class})
    public abstract class AppDatabase extends RoomDatabase {
      public abstract CountriesDao countriesDao();
    }

For more information about TypeConverters in Room check our blog here and the official docs.