Safe/Easy way to update Parcelable

Question

Is there a common practice that can prevent missout fields in writeToParcel and Parcel contructor when introducing new member variables to a class that already implemented Parcelable?

The reason is because currently I have hundreds of pojo classes that is constantly changing (adding/renaming fields) during the development phase. I find it tedious to update Parceable every time I make changes, especially new developers who joined the team tends to miss out this change.

The legacy java serialization seems to have this well taken care.

Meet the same problem. My way is remove the function and re-generate by the android studio. — Ninja, Aug 26 '16 at 06:11
Just Remove all your previous Parceable implementation. And again extend ur class with "implements Parceable". ALT + ENTER the implementation and its regenerated including the new variables you added. — D Agrawal, Aug 26 '16 at 06:15
@DAgrawal yes, that would be ideal if the developer remembers to do this every time. Question is what if he misses out? — You Qi, Aug 26 '16 at 06:25
@YouQi : Then you miss out that variable and that wont be parceable , cant be careless about it, The moment you add a new variable, do as above. — D Agrawal, Aug 26 '16 at 06:32
hence my question. the process used to be a single line change back in the serialization day. but now with Parcelable, every time I introduce a new field, I need to go thru the class to remove the `static Creator`, the `describerContent` method, the `writeToParcel`, and the `Constructor with Parcel argument` just so I can re-implement the whole thing by android studio? is there any better way in doing this or this is the only way for now? — You Qi, Aug 26 '16 at 06:41

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 26 '16 at 06:29

3

Place your cursor on your class name which implements Parcelable interface and press alt+enter(option+enter in mac) meant for Projet quick fix. Click on the option called Replace Parcelable Implementation.This does the work for you.

answered Aug 26 '16 at 06:29

Ramesh R

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1
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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 21 '21 at 19:47

You can create and update a parcelable class easily with NO HARD CODING approach and Android studio 4.1.2 can do it for you just in a few seconds !!!

Update an existing parcelable class:

Step 1: If you need to add some new field in your existing class then you need to remove the previous writeToParcel and describeContents methods and CREATOR class.

Step 2: Implement parcelable methods by pressing Alt+Enter for windows and Option+Enter for mac but you will find that the writeToParcel is empty for the first time -

Step 3: Then you will find that your class name is red now. So you need to add the CREATOR class as well as to fill the empty writeToParcel by pressing Alt+Enter for windows and Option+Enter for mac -

Finally, you will see your class will be a fully parcelable class now !!! To get more insight please see my real answer.

If you're posting [exactly the same answer](https://stackoverflow.com/a/66306363/4657412) to two questions, that usually means that you should flag on of them as a duplicate instead — DavidW, Feb 21 '21 at 20:51
And the answer is not exactly the same, I did some modifications based on his requirement. — Gk Mohammad Emon, Feb 21 '21 at 20:56

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 02 '21 at 09:07

Revisiting this in 2021. We can simply use the Parcelize annotation:

import android.os.Parcelable
import kotlinx.parcelize.Parcelize

@Parcelize
data class Headlines(
    val title: String,
    val description: String,
): Parcelable

Further reading: https://developer.android.com/kotlin/parcelize

Safe/Easy way to update Parcelable

3 Answers3