Extension with kotlinx.coroutines

[pank-su]

Sometimes in the apps, you need to know when time is changed, for example: deadlines in TODO. It was very helpfull, if kotlinx.datetime has flow extensions.

For example

Clock.System.now().asDateFlow() // emitted every date (day) change

[dkhalanskyjb]

Is your use case an Android project? If so, I don't think the proposed API would work: Android reserves the right to suspend your process when you're not using it, and you have to rely on Android's WorkManager to reliably schedule tasks. asDateFlow (no matter how we implement it) would only reliably emit dates if the app is open at the moment the emission is due.

[pank-su]

Yes, you right, but kotlinx corutines and datetime is multiplatform, and on not on every platform you can use workmanager^_^.

Secondly, I think, is not bad then you need react on every interval time, for example simple timer or stopwatch, I know, you can just use delay and duration, but in the future it will be cool than you update UI by one line code.

But it's just my crazy idea, I think is not bad and not dificiult to release this. If I will have many more use cases to this future I write here.

Thank you to your reaction👍.

[dkhalanskyjb]

Let's focus on specific use cases. We don't want to add a function that no one will actually use or one that looks like it's going to solve a use case, but in fact will silently do something different.

• Multiplatform way to run some code when the date changes. As I mentioned, this won't work on Android, so a multiplatform library developer or application will have to use expect/actual anyway to provide proper Android support, so there's no gain.
• You are talking about stopwatches and timers, but they have nothing to do with kotlinx-datetime: a timer/stopwatch starts counting seconds from the moment you press a button, so knowing when the second (or minute, or hour, or day) changed on your wall clock is meaningless.
• Anything else?