Cached Values

The purpose of the Cached Values API is to provide caching within Spec classes, rather than have to repeatedly make an expensive calculation or to use lazy state updates for this purpose.

The API is made up of two annotations: @CachedValue and @OnCalculateCachedValue. @CachedValue is used in the same way as @Prop, @State etc - it is used to annotate a parameter to a Spec method, which the generated code will use to pass the Spec method the correct cached value. In particular, the generated code will check to see if the value is already cached, and if not it will calculate the value and cache it.

@OnCalculateCachedValue is used to calculate the cached value. It has a method name() which is used to identify which cached value the method is calculating. Cached values can only depend upon props and state - any other parameters are not allowed.

@OnCreateLayout
static Component onCreateLayout(
    ComponentContext c,
    @Prop Object prop,
    @CachedValue int expensiveValue) {
  return getComponent(prop, expensiveValue);
}

@OnCalculateCachedValue(name = "expensiveValue")
static int onCalculateExpensiveValue(
    @Prop Object prop,
    @State Object state) {
  return doExpensiveCalculation(prop, state);
}

@OnCalculateCachedValue is called whenever the dependent props or state change - i.e. an equality check on them fails.

Cached values are stored on the ComponentTree, so they will live for the lifetime of the ComponentTree.