RxJava & LiveData combined error handling

Using RxJava with the architecture components from Google in the latest project that I was working on, it made me think how does error handling fit with the LiveData and can you keep the RxJava error handling which I find quite nice.

The way to use LiveData and have error handling inside your RxJava app was to introduce a wrapper class, probably something called Response which has two states: Error & Success. So when RxJava throws an exception in onError, you just create this wrapper class with error state. In the UI you check the state, if it is error -> show it, if it is success -> show the data.   But this thing actually didn’t seem quite right to me. Having this wrapper complicates the stuff and makes them look ugly. Why do I have to wrap every single data in my application in a class just to have proper error handling!? 

So I found a way in Github where a guy has created a simple app that introduced the onError method call for LiveData, similar on how we use it with RxJava. 
What he did is very simple:

• Create Flowable, Completable, Maybe and Single LiveData classes
• Wrap the result in Optional<> so you can call FlowableLiveData.onError in case of Optinal.Error
• Add extension functions to the LiveData classes like subscribeSingle with onNext and onError functions

So here is how the code looks in the ViewModel:

fun getEvent(eventId: String) = 
    eventsRepository.getEvent(eventId)
        .subscribeOn(Schedulers.io())
        .observeOn(AndroidSchedulers.mainThread())
        .doOnSuccess { childId.set(R.id.content) }
        .toReactiveSource()
 
fun <T: Any> Single<T>.toReactiveSource() = 
    SingleReactiveSource.from(this)

Here is how the code looks in the view (fragment):

eventsViewModel.getEvent(arguments!!.getString(ARG_EVENT_ID)!!)
            .subscribeSingle(this,
                onSuccess = { event ->
                    oldTitle = activity?.title
                    activity?.title = event.title
                    binding.event = event
                },
                onError = { 
    errorHandler.handleError(requireContext(), it) })