Are you building an Android App with multiple modules? If so, I guess you maybe facing the same problem as me, that is: Cross Module Method Invocation. It’s easy to call methods from library modules in our application module. But it’s annoying to invoke methods from the application module in our library modules.

Solution

In order to solve this problem, I wrote a simple tool called AppJoint. With AppJoint, now we can call any methods from any module in anywhere.

Assuming our project structure is like below:

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projectRoot
  +--app
  +--module1
  +--module2

Here, app is an application module and module1/module2 are library modules. app module depends on module1 and module2:

If we wish the app module to provide services to other modules like module1 and module2, we need to create a new library first and define service interfaces inside it and make all modules have the dependency of this new module.

For example, I create a new library module named service and create several kotlin interfaces which representing the services that each module wants to provide for other modules to use:

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projectRoot
  +--app
  +--module1
  +--module2 
  +--service
  |  +--main
  |  |  +--kotlin
  |  |  |  +--com.yourPackage
  |  |  |  |  +--AppService.kt
  |  |  |  |  +--Module1Service.kt
  |  |  |  |  +--Module2Service.kt
  • Methods in AppService are provided by the app module for other modules to use
  • Methods in Module1Service are provided by the module1 module for other modules to use
  • Methods in Module2Service are provided by the module2 module for other modules to use

All modules should include the service module excluding the service module itself:

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dependencies {
    ...
    implementation project(":service")
}

Maybe our AppService.kt source codes are like below:

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interface AppService {

  // start Activity from app module
  fun startActivityOfApp(context: Context)

  // get Fragment from app module
  fun obtainFragmentOfApp(): Fragment

  // call synchronous method from app module
  fun callMethodSyncOfApp(): String

  // call asynchronous method from app module
  fun callMethodAsyncOfApp(callback: AppCallback<AppEntity>)

  // get RxJava Observable from app module
  fun observableOfApp(): Observable<AppEntity>
}

And then we write an implementation of AppService in the app module:

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@ServiceProvider
class AppServiceImpl : AppService {
  override fun startActivityOfApp(context: Context) {
    AppActivity.start(context)
  }

  override fun obtainFragmentOfApp(): Fragment {
    return AppFragment.newInstance()
  }

  override fun callMethodSyncOfApp(): String {
    return "syncMethodResultApp"
  }

  override fun callMethodAsyncOfApp(callback: AppCallback<AppEntity>) {
    Thread { callback.onResult(AppEntity("asyncMethodResultApp")) }.start()
  }

  override fun observableOfApp(): Observable<AppEntity> {
    return Observable.just(AppEntity("rxJavaResultApp"))
  }
}

Note that we add a @ServiceProvider annotation on the AppServiceImpl class.

Now, if we need to call methods of AppService inside module1 or module2, we just need to write codes as below:

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val appService = AppJoint.service(AppService::class.java)

// call methods inside AppService
appService.callMethodSyncOfApp()

That’s all, the @ServiceProvider annotation and the AppJoint.service method are the only two API.

Getting started

It’s easy to include AppJoint.

  1. Add the AppJoint plugin dependency to the build.gradle file in project root:
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buildscript {
    ...
    dependencies {
        ...
        classpath 'io.github.prototypez:app-joint:{latest_version}'
    }
}
  1. Add the AppJoint dependency to every module：
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dependencies {
    ...
    implementation "io.github.prototypez:app-joint-core:{latest_version}"
}
  1. Apply the AppJoint plugin to your main app module： 
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apply plugin: 'com.android.application'
apply plugin: 'app-joint'

Conclusion

Github of AppJoint: https://github.com/PrototypeZ/AppJoint

Have fun!