What is ViewModel?

The ViewModel class is designed to store and manage UI-related data in a lifecycle conscious way. The ViewModel class allows data to survive configuration changes such as screen rotations.

The Android framework manages the lifecycles of UI controllers, such as activities and fragments. The framework may decide to destroy or re-create a UI controller in response to certain user actions or device events that are completely out of your control.

If the system destroys or re-creates a UI controller, any transient UI-related data you store in them is lost. For example, your app may include a list of users in one of its activities. When the activity is re-created for a configuration change, the new activity has to re-fetch the list of users. For simple data, the activity can use the onSaveInstanceState() method and restore its data from the bundle in onCreate(), but this approach is only suitable for small amounts of data that can be serialized then deserialized, not for potentially large amounts of data like a list of users or bitmaps.

Another problem is that UI controllers frequently need to make asynchronous calls that may take some time to return. The UI controller needs to manage these calls and ensure the system cleans them up after it's destroyed to avoid potential memory leaks. This management requires a lot of maintenance, and in the case where the object is re-created for a configuration change, it's a waste of resources since the object may have to reissue calls it has already made.

UI controllers such as activities and fragments are primarily intended to display UI data, react to user actions, or handle operating system communication, such as permission requests. Requiring UI controllers to also be responsible for loading data from a database or network adds bloat to the class. Assigning excessive responsibility to UI controllers can result in a single class that tries to handle all of an app's work by itself, instead of delegating work to other classes. Assigning excessive responsibility to the UI controllers in this way also makes testing a lot harder.

It's easier and more efficient to separate out view data ownership from UI controller logic.

Implement a ViewModel

Architecture Components provides ViewModel helper class for the UI controller that is responsible for preparing data for the UI. ViewModel objects are automatically retained during configuration changes so that data they hold is immediately available to the next activity or fragment instance. For example, if you need to display a list of users in your app, make sure to assign responsibility to acquire and keep the list of users to a ViewModel, instead of an activity or fragment, as illustrated by the following sample code:

class MyViewModel : ViewModel() {
    private val users: MutableLiveData<List<User>> by lazy {
        MutableLiveData().also {
            loadUsers()
        }
    }

    fun getUsers(): LiveData<List<User>> {
        return users
    }

    private fun loadUsers() {
        // Do an asynchronous operation to fetch users.
    }
}

You can then access the list from an activity as follows:

class MyActivity : AppCompatActivity() {

    override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        // Create a ViewModel the first time the system calls an activity's onCreate() method.
        // Re-created activities receive the same MyViewModel instance created by the first activity.

        // Use the 'by viewModels()' Kotlin property delegate
        // from the activity-ktx artifact
        val model: MyViewModel by viewModels()
        model.getUsers().observe(this, Observer<List<User>>{ users ->
            // update UI
        })
    }

}

If the activity is re-created, it receives the same MyViewModel instance that was created by the first activity. When the owner activity is finished, the framework calls the ViewModel objects's onCleared() method so that it can clean up resources.

Caution: A ViewModel must never reference a view, Lifecycle, or any class that may hold a reference to the activity context.

ViewModel objects are designed to outlive specific instantiations of views or LifecycleOwners. This design also means you can write tests to cover a ViewModel more easily as it doesn't know about view and Lifecycle objects. ViewModel objects can contain LifecycleObservers, such as LiveData objects. However ViewModel objects must never observe changes to lifecycle-aware observables, such as LiveData objects. If the ViewModel needs the Application context, for example to find a system service, it can extend the AndroidViewModel class and have a constructor that receives the Application in the constructor, since Application class extends Context.

The lifecycle of a ViewModel

ViewModel objects are scoped to the Lifecycle passed to the ViewModelProvider when getting the ViewModel. The ViewModel remains in memory until the Lifecycle it's scoped to goes away permanently: in the case of an activity, when it finishes, while in the case of a fragment, when it's detached.

Figure 1 illustrates the various lifecycle states of an activity as it undergoes a rotation and then is finished. The illustration also shows the lifetime of the ViewModel next to the associated activity lifecycle. This particular diagram illustrates the states of an activity. The same basic states apply to the lifecycle of a fragment.

You usually request a ViewModel the first time the system calls an activity object's onCreate() method. The system may call onCreate() several times throughout the life of an activity, such as when a device screen is rotated. The ViewModel exists from when you first request a ViewModel until the activity is finished and destroyed.