State and Jetpack Compose

State in an app is any value that can change over time. This is a very broad definition and encompasses everything from a Room database to a variable on a class.

Key Term: State in an app is any value that can change over time.

For example it may be a value stored in a Room database, a property on an object, or even the current value read from an accelerometer.

All Android apps display state to the user. A few examples of state in Android apps:

• A Snackbar that shows when a network connection can't be established.
• A blog post and associated comments.
• Ripple animations on buttons that play when a user clicks them.
• Stickers that a user can draw on top of an image.

Jetpack Compose helps you be explicit about where and how you store and use state in an Android app. This guide focuses on the connection between state and composables, and on the APIs that Jetpack Compose offers to work with state more easily.

State in Compose

The concept of state is at the core of Compose. Consider a simple example: a screen where the user can enter their name and a greeting is displayed in response. The following code includes text for the greeting and a text field for the name input:

@Composable
fun HelloContent() {
   Column(modifier = Modifier.padding(16.dp)) {
       Text(
           text = "Hello!",
           modifier = Modifier.padding(bottom = 8.dp),
           style = MaterialTheme.typography.h5
       )
       OutlinedTextField(
           value = "",
           onValueChange = { },
           label = { Text("Name") }
       )
   }
}

If you run this, you'll see that nothing happens. That's because the TextField doesn't update itself—it updates when its value parameter changes. This is due to how composition and recomposition work in Compose.

Composition and recomposition

A composition describes the UI and is produced by running composables. A composition is a tree-structure of the composables that describe your UI.

During initial composition, Compose will keep track of the composables that you call to describe your UI in a composition. Then, when the state of your app changes, Jetpack Compose schedules recomposition. Recomposition is running the composables that may have changed in response to state changes, and Jetpack Compose updates the composition to reflect any changes.

A composition can only be produced by an initial composition and updated by recomposition. The only way to modify a composition is through recomposition.

Key Term: Composition: a description of the UI built by Jetpack Compose when it executes composables.

Initial composition: creation of a Composition by running composables the first time.

Recomposition: re-running composables to update the Composition when data changes.

To learn more about initial composition and recomposition, see Thinking in Compose.

Introducing state

To update the composable, pass in a value that represents the state of the TextField and add code to update the state when the value of the TextField changes.

To introduce a local state that holds the name that should be displayed, use remember { mutableStateOf() }, passing in the default value for the text. That way, whenever the name state changes, the value displayed by TextField will change too.

@Composable
fun HelloContent() {
    Column(modifier = Modifier.padding(16.dp)) {
        var name by remember { mutableStateOf("") }
        Text(
            text = "Hello",
            modifier = Modifier.padding(bottom = 8.dp),
            style = MaterialTheme.typography.h5
        )
        OutlinedTextField(
            value = name,
            onValueChange = { name = it },
            label = { Text("Name") }
        )
    }
}

Composable functions can store a single object in memory by using the remember composable. A value computed by remember is stored in the composition during initial composition, and that stored value is returned during recomposition. You can use remember to store both mutable and immutable objects.

Key Term: remember is a function that gives another composable function memory.

Note: remember stores objects in the composition, and forgets those objects when the composable that called remember is removed from the composition.

mutableStateOf creates a MutableState, which is an observable type in Compose. Any changes to its value will schedule recomposition of any composable functions that read that value.

remember helps you preserve the state across recompositions. If you use mutableStateOf without also using remember, then the state is reinitialized to an empty string every time the HelloContent composable is recomposed.

You can use the remembered value as a parameter for other composables or even as logic in statements to change which composables are displayed. For example, if you don't want to display the greeting if the name is empty, use the state in an if statement:

@Composable
fun HelloContent() {
   Column(modifier = Modifier.padding(16.dp)) {
       var name by remember { mutableStateOf("") }
       if (name.isNotEmpty()) {
           Text(
               text = "Hello, $name!",
               modifier = Modifier.padding(bottom = 8.dp),
               style = MaterialTheme.typography.h5
           )
       }
       OutlinedTextField(
           value = name,
           onValueChange = { name = it },
           label = { Text("Name") }
       )
   }
}

While remember helps you retain state across recompositions, the state is not retained across configuration changes. For this, you must use rememberSaveable. rememberSaveable automatically saves any value that can be saved in a Bundle. For other values, you can pass in a custom saver object.

@Composable
fun HelloContent() {
    Column(modifier = Modifier.padding(16.dp)) {
        var name by rememberSaveable { mutableStateOf("") }
        if (name.isNotEmpty()) {
            Text(
                text = "Hello, $name!",
                modifier = Modifier.padding(bottom = 8.dp),
                style = MaterialTheme.typography.h5
            )
        }
        OutlinedTextField(
            value = name,
            onValueChange = { name = it },
            label = { Text("Name") }
        )
    }
}

Key Point: When adding internal state to a composable, evaluate if it should be retained during configuration changes or interruptions such as phone calls.

If the answer is yes, use rememberSaveable to store the state.

Stateless composables

When a composable holds its own state like in the example above, it makes the composable hard to reuse and test, and it also keeps the composable tightly coupled to how its state is stored. Instead, you should make this a stateless composable—a composable that doesn't hold any state.

To do this, you can use state hoisting. State hoisting is a programming pattern where you move the state of a composable to the caller of that composable. A simple way to do this is by replacing the state with a parameter and using lambdas to represent events.

Key Term: State hoisting is a pattern of moving state up the tree to make a component stateless.

When applied to composables, this often means introducing two parameters to the composable:

• value: T: the current value to display.
• onValueChange: (T) -> Unit: an event that requests the value to change where T is the proposed new value.

In the example case, you extract the name and the onValueChange out of HelloContent and move them up the tree to a HelloScreen composable that calls HelloContent.

@Composable
fun HelloScreen() {
    var name by rememberSaveable { mutableStateOf("") }

    HelloContent(name = name, onNameChange = { name = it })
}

@Composable
fun HelloContent(name: String, onNameChange: (String) -> Unit) {
    Column(modifier = Modifier.padding(16.dp)) {
        Text(
            text = "Hello, $name",
            modifier = Modifier.padding(bottom = 8.dp),
            style = MaterialTheme.typography.h5
        )
        OutlinedTextField(
            value = name,
            onValueChange = { onNameChanged(it) },
            label = { Text("Name") }
        )
    }
}

HelloContent has access to the state as an immutable String parameter, as well as a lambda onNameChange that it can call when it wants to request the state change.

Lambdas are the most common way to describe events on a composable. In this example, you define an event called onNameChange using a lambda that takes a String, using Kotlin's function type syntax: (String) -> Unit. The lambda is called onNameChange—present tense, as the event doesn't mean the state has already changed, but rather that the composable is requesting that the event handler change it.

By hoisting the state out of HelloContent, it's easier to reason about the composable, reuse it in different situations, and test. HelloContent is decoupled from how its state is stored. Decoupling means that if you modify or replace HelloScreen, you don't have to change how HelloContent is implemented.

The pattern where the state goes down, and events go up is called a unidirectional data flow. In this case, the state goes down from HelloScreen to HelloContent and events go up from HelloContent to HelloScreen. By following unidirectional data flow, you can decouple composables that display state in the UI from the parts of your app that store and change state.

ViewModel and state

In Jetpack Compose, you can use the ViewModel to expose the state in an observable holder (like LiveData or Flow) and also to handle events that affect that state. The HelloScreen example above would be implemented using a ViewModel like this:

class HelloViewModel : ViewModel() {

    // LiveData holds state which is observed by the UI
    // (state flows down from ViewModel)
    private val _name = MutableLiveData("")
    val name: LiveData<String> = _name

    // onNameChanged is an event we're defining that the UI can invoke
    // (events flow up from UI)
    fun onNameChanged(newName: String) {
        _name.value = newName
    }
}

@Composable
fun HelloScreen(helloViewModel: HelloViewModel = viewModel()) {
    // by default, viewModel() follows the Lifecycle as the Activity or Fragment
    // that calls HelloScreen(). This lifecycle can be modified by callers of HelloScreen.

    // name is the current value of [helloViewModel.name]
    // with an initial value of ""
    val name: String by helloViewModel.name.observeAsState("")
    HelloContent(name = name, onNameChange = { name = it })
}

@Composable
fun HelloContent(name: String, onNameChange: (String) -> Unit) {
    Column(modifier = Modifier.padding(16.dp)) {
        Text(
            text = "Hello, $name",
            modifier = Modifier.padding(bottom = 8.dp),
            style = MaterialTheme.typography.h5
        )
        OutlinedTextField(
            value = name,
            onValueChange = { onNameChanged(it) },
            label = { Text("Name") }
        )
    }
}

observeAsState observes a LiveData<T> and returns a State<T> object that is updated whenever the LiveData changes. State<T> is an observable type that Jetpack Compose can use directly. observeAsState will observe the LiveData only while it is in the composition.

Note: Use the property delegate syntax (by) to implicitly treat State<T> as objects of type T in Jetpack Compose.

The line:

val name: String by helloViewModel.name.observeAsState("")

...is syntactic sugar to automatically unwrap the state object that is returned by observeAsState. You can also assign the state object using an assignment operator (=), which makes it a State<String> instead of a String:

val nameState: State<String> = helloViewModel.name.observeAsState("")

HelloViewModel and HelloScreen follow the unidirectional data flow pattern where state flows down from HelloViewModel, and events flow up from HelloScreen.

Consider the UI event loop for this screen:

1. Event: onValueChange is called in response to the user typing a character.
2. Update state: HelloViewModel.onNameChanged handles processing, then sets the state of the mutable LiveData, _name.
3. Display state: The value of HelloViewmodel.name changes, which is observed by Compose in observeAsState. Then, HelloScreen runs again (or recomposes) to describe the UI based on the new value of name.

See Architecting your Compose UI to learn more about how the unidirectional data flow can be implemented using ViewModel and Jetpack Compose.

Using remember

Composable functions can store a single object in memory by using the remember composable. A value computed by remember is stored in the Composition during initial composition, and the stored value is returned during recomposition. remember can be used to store both mutable and immutable objects.

Key Term: remember gives a composable function memory.

Note: remember stores objects in the Composition, and forgets the object when the composable that called remember is removed from the Composition.

Use remember to store immutable values

You can store immutable values when caching expensive UI operations, such as computing text formatting. The remembered value is stored in the Composition with the composable that called remember.

Key Point: Immutable values are values that can never change, like "Hello", 7, or an immutable data class.

@Composable
fun FancyText(text: String) {
    // by passing text as a parameter to remember, it will re-run the calculation on
    // recomposition if text has changed since the last recomposition
    val formattedText = remember(text) { computeTextFormatting(text) }
    /*...*/
}

Composition of FancyText with formattedText as child

Use remember to create internal state in a composable

Key Point: Mutable objects are objects that can change.

When you store a mutable object using remember, you add state to a composable. You can use this approach to create internal state for a single stateful composable.

We strongly recommend that all mutable state used by composables be observable. This allows compose to automatically recompose whenever the state changes. Compose comes with a built-in observable type State<T> which is directly integrated into the Compose runtime.

Note: If remember holds a mutable object, that makes the composable stateful.

Internal state in a composable is equivalent to a private var on a class, and should be used for implementation details that the caller doesn't need to interact with.

If a caller needs to read or write the state, prefer state hoisting.

A good example of internal state in a composable is an ExpandingCard that animates between collapsed and expanded when the user clicks a button.

ExpandedCard composable animates between collapsed and expanded

This composable has one important state: expanded. When expanded the composable should show the body, and when collapsed it should hide the body.

Composition of ExpandingCard with expanded state as child

You can add a state expanded to a composable by remembering mutableStateOf(initialValue).

@Composable
fun ExpandingCard(title: String, body: String) {
    // expanded is "internal state" for ExpandingCard
    var expanded by remember { mutableStateOf(false) }

    // describe the card for the current state of expanded
    Card {
        Column(
            Modifier
                .width(280.dp)
                .animateContentSize() // automatically animate size when it changes
                .padding(top = 16.dp, start = 16.dp, end = 16.dp)
        ) {
            Text(text = title)

            // content of the card depends on the current value of expanded
            if (expanded) {
                // TODO: show body & collapse icon
            } else {
                // TODO: show expand icon
            }
        }
    }
}

mutableStateOf creates an observable MutableState<T>, which is an observable type integrated with the compose runtime.

interface MutableState<T> : State<T> {
   override var value: T
}

Any changes to value will schedule recomposition of any composable functions that read value. In the case of ExpandingCard, whenever expanded changes, it causes ExpandingCard to be recomposed.

There are three ways to declare a MutableState object in a composable:

• val mutableState = remember { mutableStateOf(default) }
• var value by remember { mutableStateOf(default) }
• val (value, setValue) = remember { mutableStateOf(default) }

These declarations are equivalent, and are provided as syntax sugar for different uses of state. You should pick the one that produces the easiest-to-read code in the composable you're writing.

Note: When creating MutableState<T> (or other stateful objects) in a composable, it's important to remember them. Otherwise they will be re-initialized every recomposition.

You can use the value of internal state in a composable as a parameter to another composable, or even to change what composables are called. In ExpandingCard an if-statement will change the content of the card based on the current value of expanded.

if (expanded) {
   // TODO: show body & collapse icon
} else {
   // TODO: show expand icon
}

Modify internal state in a composable

State should be modified by events in a composable. If you modify state when running a composable instead of in an event, this is a side-effect of the composable, which should be avoided. For more information about side-effects in Jetpack Compose, see Thinking in Compose.

To complete the ExpandingCard composable, let’s display the body and a collapse button when expanded is true and an expand button when expanded is false.

@Composable
fun ExpandingCard(title: String, body: String) {
    var expanded by remember { mutableStateOf(false) }

    // describe the card for the current state of expanded
    Card {
        Column(
            Modifier
                .width(280.dp)
                .animateContentSize() // automatically animate size when it changes
                .padding(top = 16.dp, start = 16.dp, end = 16.dp)
        ) {
            Text(text = title)

            // content of the card depends on the current value of expanded
            if (expanded) {
                Text(text = body, Modifier.padding(top = 8.dp))
                // change expanded in response to click events
                IconButton(onClick = { expanded = false }, modifier = Modifier.fillMaxWidth()) {
                    Icon(Icons.Default.ExpandLess)
                }
            } else {
                // change expanded in response to click events
                IconButton(onClick = { expanded = true }, modifier = Modifier.fillMaxWidth()) {
                    Icon(Icons.Default.ExpandMore)
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

In this composable, the state is modified in response to onClick events. Since expanded is using var with the property delegate syntax, the onClick callbacks can assign expanded directly.

IconButton(onClick = { expanded = true }, /* … */) {
   // ...
}

Key Point: State should be modified by events in a composable.

Assigning state while running a composable is a side-effect and should be avoided.

We can now describe the UI Update Loop for ExpandingCard to see how internal state is modified and used by Compose.

1. Event: onClick is called in response to the user tapping on one of the buttons.
2. Update state: expanded is changed in the onClick listener using assignment.
3. Display state: ExpandingCard recomposes because expanded is State<Boolean> that changed, and ExpandingCard reads it in the line if(expanded). ExpandingCard then describes the screen for the new value of expanded.

Use other types of state in Jetpack Compose

Jetpack Compose doesn't require that you use MutableState<T> to hold state. Jetpack Compose supports other observable types. Before reading another observable type in Jetpack Compose, you must convert it to a State<T> so that Jetpack Compose can automatically recompose when the state changes.

Compose ships with functions to create State<T> from common observable types used in Android apps:

• LiveData
• Flow
• RxJava2

You can build an extension function for Jetpack Compose to read other observable types if your app uses a custom observable class. See the implementation of the builtins for examples of how to do this. Any object that allows Jetpack Compose to subscribe to every change can be converted to State<T> and read by a composable.

You can also build integration layers for non-observable state objects by using invalidate to manually trigger recomposition. This should be reserved for situations where you must interoperate with a non-observable type. Using invalidate is easy to get wrong and tends to lead to complex code that's harder to read than the same code using observable state objects.

Key Point: Compose will automatically recompose from reading State<T> objects.

If you use another observable type such as LiveData in Compose, you should convert it to State<T> before reading it in a composable using a composable extension function like LiveData<T>.observeAsState().

Caution: Using mutable objects such as ArrayList<T> or mutableListOf() as state in Compose will cause your users to see incorrect or stale data in your app.

Mutable objects that are not observable, such as ArrayList<T> or a mutable data class, cannot be observed by Compose to trigger recomposition when they change.

Instead of using non-observable mutable objects, we recommend you use an observable data holder such as State<List<T>> and the immutable listOf().

Separate internal state from UI composables

The ExpandingCard in the last section has internal state. As a result, the caller cannot control the state. This means, for example, that if you wanted to start an ExpandingCard in the expanded state, there is no way to do so. You also can't make the card expand in response to another event, such as the user clicking on a Fab. It also means that if you wanted to move the expanded state into a ViewModel, you couldn't do it.

On the other hand, by using internal state in ExpandingCard, a caller that doesn't need to control or hoist the state can use it without having to manage the state themselves.

As you develop reusable composables, you often want to expose both a stateful and a stateless version of the same composable. The stateful version is convenient for callers that don't care about the state, and the stateless version is necessary for callers that need to control or hoist the state.

To provide both as a stateful and stateless interfaces, extract a stateless composable that displays the UI using state hoisting.

Notice that both composables are both named ExpandingCard even though they take different parameters. The naming convention for composables that emit UI is a capital-case noun that describes what the composable represents on the screen. In this case, they both represent an ExpandingCard. This naming convention applied throughout the Compose libraries, for example in TextField and TextField.

Here's ExpandingCard split into stateful and stateless composables:

// this stateful composable is only responsible for holding internal state
// and defers the UI to the stateless composable
@Composable
fun ExpandingCard(title: String, body: String) {
    var expanded by remember { mutableStateOf(false) }
    ExpandingCard(
        title = title,
        body = body,
        expanded = expanded,
        onExpand = { expanded = true },
        onCollapse = { expanded = false }
    )
}

// this stateless composable is responsible for describing the UI based on the state
// passed to it and firing events in response to the buttons being pressed
@Composable
fun ExpandingCard(
    title: String,
    body: String,
    expanded: Boolean,
    onExpand: () -> Unit,
    onCollapse: () -> Unit
) {
    Card {
        Column(
            Modifier
                .width(280.dp)
                .animateContentSize() // automatically animate size when it changes
                .padding(top = 16.dp, start = 16.dp, end = 16.dp)
        ) {
            Text(title)
            if (expanded) {
                Spacer(Modifier.height(8.dp))
                Text(body)
                IconButton(onClick = onCollapse, Modifier.fillMaxWidth()) {
                    Icon(Icons.Default.ExpandLess)
                }
            } else {
                IconButton(onClick = onExpand, Modifier.fillMaxWidth()) {
                    Icon(Icons.Default.ExpandMore)
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

State hoisting in Compose is a pattern of moving state to a composable's caller to make a composable stateless. The general pattern for state hoisting in Jetpack Compose is to replace the state variable with two parameters:

• value: T: the current value to display
• onValueChange: (T) -> Unit: an event that requests the value to change, where T is the proposed new value

However, you are not limited to onValueChange. If more specific events are appropriate for the composable you should define them using lambdas like ExpandingCard does with onExpand and onCollapse.

State that is hoisted this way has some important properties:

• Single source of truth: by moving state instead of duplicating it, we're ensuring there's only one source of truth for expanded. This helps avoid bugs.
• Encapsulated: only stateful ExpandingCard will be able to modify its state. It's completely internal.
• Shareable: hoisted state can be shared with multiple composables. Say we wanted to hide a Fab button when the Card is expanded, hoisting would allow us to do that.
• Interceptable: callers to the stateless ExpandingCard can decide to ignore or modify events before changing the state.
• Decoupled: the state for the stateless ExpandingCard may be stored anywhere. For example, it's now possible to move title, body, and expanded into a ViewModel.

Hosting this way also follows unidirectional data flow. The state is passed down from the stateful composable, and events flow up from the stateless composable.

Unidirectional data flow diagram for stateful and stateless ExpandingCard

Key Point: When hoisting state, there are three rules to help you figure out where state should go:

1. State should be hoisted to at least the lowest common parent of all composables that use the state (read).
2. State should be hoisted to at least the highest level it may be changed (write).
3. If two states change in response to the same events they should be hoisted together.

You can hoist state higher than these rules require, but underhoisting state will make it difficult or impossible to follow unidirectional data flow.

Restore UI state after activity or process recreation

Use rememberSaveable to restore your UI state after an activity or process is recreated. rememberSaveable retains state across recompositions. In addition, rememberSaveable also retains state across activity and process recreation.

@Composable
fun MyExample() {
    var selectedId by rememberSaveable<String?> { mutableStateOf(null) }
    /*...*/
}

All data types that are added to the Bundle are saved automatically. If you want to save something that cannot be added to the Bundle, there are several options.

The simplest solution is to add the @Parcelize annotation to the object. The object becomes parcelable, and can be bundled. For example, this code makes a parcelable City data type and saves it to the state.

@Parcelize
data class City(val name: String, val country: String)

@Composable
fun MyExample() {
  var selectedCity = rememberSaveable { mutableStateOf(City("Madrid", "Spain")) }
}

If for some reason @Parcelize is not suitable, you can use mapSaver to define your own rule for converting an object into a set of values that the system can save to the Bundle.

data class City(val name: String, val country: String)

val CitySaver = run {
    val nameKey = "Name"
    val countryKey = "Country"
    mapSaver(
        save = { mapOf(nameKey to it.name, nameKey to it.country) },
        restore = { City(it[nameKey] as String, it[countryKey] as String) }
    )
}

@Composable
fun MyExample() {
    var selectedCity = rememberSaveable { mutableStateOf(City("Madrid", "Spain")) }
}

To avoid needing to define the keys for the map, you can also use listSaver and use its indices as keys:

data class City(val name: String, val country: String)

val CitySaver = listSaver<City, Any>(
    save = { listOf(it.name, it.country) },
    restore = { City(it[0] as String, it[1] as String) }
)

@Composable
fun MyExample() {
    var selectedCity = rememberSaveable { mutableStateOf(City("Madrid", "Spain")) }
    /*...*/
}

Learn more

To learn more about state and Jetpack Compose, take the Using State in Jetpack Compose codelab.