Cannot resolve ViewModelProvider construction in a fragment?

Question

I have been spending a lot of time trying to figure out why in the code below (towards the end), I get an error on ViewModelProvider(this). I also tried getActivity() instead of

Answer 1

The cleanest implementation must use Kotlin for its advanced functions. You can either create this kotlin code in a separate Kclass or leave this answer for future users that want to know how to do this in Kotlin. Basically we are initialising the ViewModel by lazy like this:

Make sure you have this dependency:

implementation "androidx.fragment:fragment-ktx:1.2.0"

Create this helper function that accesses an internal fragment-ktx method that allows yo to create a ViewModel instance by lazy:

@MainThread
inline fun  Fragment.fragmentViewModel() =
    createViewModelLazy(
        VM::class,
        { this.viewModelStore },
        { ViewModelFactory(Database.getDatabase(requireContext().applicationContext)) }
    )

Now create a ViewModelFactory using this official java example:

https://github.com/android/architecture-components-samples/blob/master/BasicRxJavaSample/app/src/main/java/com/example/android/observability/ui/ViewModelFactory.java

Or, here is the Kotlin variant:

class ViewModelFactory(private val database: Database?) : ViewModelProvider.Factory {

    override fun  create(modelClass: Class): T {

        requireNotNull(database) { "Database must not be null" }

        return when {

            modelClass.isAssignableFrom(ItemSetupFragmentModel::class.java) -> {
                ItemSetupFragmentModel() as T
            }

            else -> {
                throw IllegalArgumentException("Unknown ViewModel class")
            }
        }
    }
}

And now go inside your fragment and simply initialise your ViewModel like this

class ItemSetupFragment : Fragment() {

    private val model by viewModel()

    override fun onViewCreated(view: View, savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        super.onViewCreated(view, savedInstanceState)

        model.getKids().observe(this, users -> {
            // update UI
        });
    }
}

Hope this helps!