Provider State Management

Provider: a simplified state management solution

Provider is a Flutter package that simplifies state management by offering a straightforward approach based on the InheritedWidget mechanism. It allows data to be passed down the widget tree efficiently and notifies dependent widgets when the data changes.

Key Concepts

  • ChangeNotifier: A class that extends ChangeNotifier and represents the state. It provides the notifyListeners() method to notify listeners about state changes.

  • Provider: An InheritedWidget that provides the state to its descendants. It listens to ChangeNotifier updates and rebuilds widgets that depend on the state.

Implementing Provider in Flutter

  1. Add the provider package to your Flutter project's dependencies.

  2. Create a class that extends ChangeNotifier to represent the state.

  3. Wrap the root widget of your application with the MultiProvider widget to establish the provider hierarchy.

  4. Within the widget tree, use Provider.of<T>(context) to access the state and rebuild widgets when the state changes.

  5. Use Consumer<T> to consume the state and rebuild specific widgets when the state changes.

Working with ChangeNotifier

ChangeNotifier classes are responsible for holding the application state and notifying listeners about state changes. To update the state, modify the properties of the ChangeNotifier subclass and call notifyListeners().

Consuming Provider using Provider.of and Consumer

  • Use Provider.of<T>(context) to obtain the current state within a widget. It rebuilds the widget whenever the state changes.

  • Use Consumer<T> to listen to changes in the state and rebuild only the specific subtree wrapped by the Consumer widget.

For detailed information on Provider, navigate through the below reference links:

Provider Tutorial

Provider State management in Flutter

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