Difference between FragmentPagerAdapter and FragmentStatePager Adapter


Introduction

FragmentPager Adapter and FragmentStatePager Adapter are the two different classes which are used to implement the Pager Adapter within an android application. This pager adapter is used when working with Android’s ViewPager. These pager adapters are responsible for managing the lifecycle of each page which is being displayed within the view pager. The common thing between both of these adapters is that they are the subclass of the PageAdapter class. In this article we will take a look at the Difference between Fragment Pager Adapter and Fragment State Pager Adapter.

What is an Adapter in Android?

An Android Adapter is an important bridge between a View and the underlying data that helps to fill the View. An Adapter's job is to take data from a source such as an array or database and convert each item into a result view that is displayed within the Activity. It acts as a bridge between the View and the data set that provides access to the data items. An Android Adapter is essentially a collection of items that is used to provide data for the View. The Adapter provides the View with data from a source and maps each item from the data set to a View object, such as a TextView, ImageView, or ListView. The Adapter acts as an intermediary between the data source and the View, and it is responsible for determining what data will be shown in the View and how it should be formatted.

Adapters are used in android applications for different types of views such as ListView Recyclerview, Bottom Navigation View, Tab Layout and many more. Any view which has a similar set of content in a repetitive format can be handled with the help of adapter. Adapter will set the content to each of them to be displayed within that view. There are different types of adapter which are used for different types of views. In this article we will take a look at Fragment Pager Adapter and Fragment State Pager Adapter in android application.

What is the Fragment Pager Adapter in Android?

FragmentPagerAdapter is an implementation of PagerAdapter that uses a Fragment to manage each page. It represents each page as a Fragment that is kept in memory, though it may be paused or stopped if the user navigates away from the page. This is useful when there are a handful of typically more static fragments to be paged through, such as a set of tabs. The fragment of each page the user visits will be kept in memory, though its view hierarchy may be destroyed when not visible. This can result in using a significant amount of memory since fragment instances can hold on to an arbitrary amount of state. For larger sets of pages, consider FragmentStatePagerAdapter.

What is the Fragment State Pager Adapter in Android?

FragmentStatePagerAdapter on the other hand, destroys the Fragments when they are not visible to the user. This can be useful when you have a large number of Fragments or when the data associated with the Fragments is dynamic and may change over time. Fragment State Pager Adapter is an Android component that allows you to easily create sliding tabs in your Android applications. It works by creating a Fragment for each page in the tab, and then utilizing a ViewPager to manage the fragments. This allows for easy navigation between the different pages of your app as well as smooth transitions between each page.

Difference between Fragment Pager Adapter and Fragment State Pager Adapter

FragmentPagerAdapter

FragmentStatePagerAdapter

FragmentStatePagerAdapter keeps all Fragment instances in memory.

FragmentStatePagerAdapter keeps the current Fragment instance in memory and saves the state of other Fragment instances to disk.

FragmentPagerAdapter uses more memory.

FragmentStatePagerAdapter uses less memory compared to FragmentPagerAdapter. Because it does not keep all Fragments in the memory at the same time.

FragmentPagerAdapter has less Scrolling Performance than FragmentStatePagerAdapter

FragmentPagerAdapter has less Scrolling Performance than FragmentStatePagerAdapter

FragmentPagerAdapter is suitable for a small number of pages.

FragmentStatePagerAdapter is suitable for a large number of pages.

Conclusion

So, in summary, “ FragmentPagerAdapter ” is a good choice when you have a small number of Fragments i.e pages that you want to keep in memory all the time for performance reasons, while “ FragmentStatePagerAdapter ” is a better choice when you have a large number of Fragments i.e pages and you want to optimize for memory usage and scrolling performance or when the data associated with the Fragments may change over the time.

Updated on: 08-May-2023

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