How to filter a RecyclerView with a SearchView

Question

I am trying to implement the SearchView from the support library. I want the user to be to use the SearchView to filter a List of movi

Answer 1

I don't know why everyone is using 2 copies of the same list to solve this. This uses too much RAM...

Why not just hide the elements that are not found, and simply store their index in a Set to be able to restore them later? That's much less RAM especially if your objects are quite large.

public class MyRecyclerViewAdapter extends RecyclerView.Adapter{
    private List myObjectsList; //holds the items of type MyObject
    private Set foundObjects; //holds the indices of the found items

    public MyRecyclerViewAdapter(Context context, List myObjectsList)
    {
        this.myObjectsList = myObjectsList;
        this.foundObjects = new HashSet<>();
        //first, add all indices to the indices set
        for(int i = 0; i < this.myObjectsList.size(); i++)
        {
            this.foundObjects.add(i);
        }
    }

    @NonNull
    @Override
    public SampleViewHolders onCreateViewHolder(@NonNull ViewGroup parent, int viewType) {
        View layoutView = LayoutInflater.from(parent.getContext()).inflate(
                R.layout.my_layout_for_staggered_grid, null);
        MyRecyclerViewAdapter.SampleViewHolders rcv = new MyRecyclerViewAdapter.SampleViewHolders(layoutView);
        return rcv;
    }

    @Override
    public void onBindViewHolder(@NonNull SampleViewHolders holder, int position)
    {
        //look for object in O(1) in the indices set
        if(!foundObjects.contains(position))
        {
            //object not found => hide it.
            holder.hideLayout();
            return;
        }
        else
        {
            //object found => show it.
            holder.showLayout();
        }

        //holder.imgImageView.setImageResource(...)
        //holder.nameTextView.setText(...)
    }

    @Override
    public int getItemCount() {
        return myObjectsList.size();
    }

    public void findObject(String text)
    {
        //look for "text" in the objects list
        for(int i = 0; i < myObjectsList.size(); i++)
        {
            //if it's empty text, we want all objects, so just add it to the set.
            if(text.length() == 0)
            {
                foundObjects.add(i);
            }
            else
            {
                //otherwise check if it meets your search criteria and add it or remove it accordingly
                if (myObjectsList.get(i).getName().toLowerCase().contains(text.toLowerCase()))
                {
                    foundObjects.add(i);
                }
                else
                {
                    foundObjects.remove(i);
                }
            }
        }
        notifyDataSetChanged();
    }

    public class SampleViewHolders extends RecyclerView.ViewHolder implements View.OnClickListener
    {
        public ImageView imgImageView;
        public TextView nameTextView;

        private final CardView layout;
        private final CardView.LayoutParams hiddenLayoutParams;
        private final CardView.LayoutParams shownLayoutParams;

        
        public SampleViewHolders(View itemView)
        {
            super(itemView);
            itemView.setOnClickListener(this);
            imgImageView = (ImageView) itemView.findViewById(R.id.some_image_view);
            nameTextView = (TextView) itemView.findViewById(R.id.display_name_textview);

            layout = itemView.findViewById(R.id.card_view); //card_view is the id of my androidx.cardview.widget.CardView in my xml layout
            //prepare hidden layout params with height = 0, and visible layout params for later - see hideLayout() and showLayout()
            hiddenLayoutParams = new CardView.LayoutParams(ViewGroup.LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT,
                    ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT);
            hiddenLayoutParams.height = 0;
            shownLayoutParams = new CardView.LayoutParams(ViewGroup.LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT,
                    ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT);
        }

        @Override
        public void onClick(View view)
        {
            //implement...
        }

        private void hideLayout() {
            //hide the layout
            layout.setLayoutParams(hiddenLayoutParams);
        }

        private void showLayout() {
            //show the layout
            layout.setLayoutParams(shownLayoutParams);
        }
    }
}

And I simply have an EditText as my search box:

cardsSearchTextView.addTextChangedListener(new TextWatcher() {
            @Override
            public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence charSequence, int i, int i1, int i2) {

            }

            @Override
            public void onTextChanged(CharSequence charSequence, int i, int i1, int i2) {

            }

            @Override
            public void afterTextChanged(Editable editable) {
                myViewAdapter.findObject(editable.toString().toLowerCase());
            }
        });

Result: