Data providers

The Mapbox Search SDK for Android lets developers to attach their own places, POIs, and address information to SearchEngine via data providers. Engines will index the provided data and use this data during forward geocoding and category search requests.

Indexable record

IndexableRecord stores place, POI, and address information that can later be used by both users and the Search SDK. The Search SDK uses information from IndexableRecord to prepare the data provider engine and construct search results.

val searchResult: SearchResult = // ...
val record = searchResult?.indexableRecord

Data provider

IndexableDataProvider has two main responsibilities:

1. Store IndexableRecords and provide read and write access so the Search SDK is able to retrieve and add records.
2. Keep the data provider engine up to date to guarantee all indexable records are available during search.

Data provider engine

IndexableDataProviderEngine is a search index that can be used by multiple search engines during search requests after processing. If you want search engines to be able to search across your data, add all necessary indexable records to the engine during the IndexableDataProvider.registerIndexableDataProviderEngine() operation or later, when data will become available:

class CustomDataProvider : IndexableDataProvider<CustomIndexableRecord> {

    private val dataProviderEngines: MutableList<IndexableDataProviderEngine> = mutableListOf()
    private val records: MutableList<IndexableRecord> = mutableListOf()

    /**
     * Invoked when `CustomDataProvider` is registered in a `SearchEngine`.
     */
    override fun registerIndexableDataProviderEngine(
        dataProviderEngine: IndexableDataProviderEngine,
        executor: Executor,
        callback: CompletionCallback<Unit>
    ): AsyncOperationTask {
        synchronized(this) {
            dataProviderEngines.add(dataProviderEngine)
            dataProviderEngine.upsertAll(records)
        }
        executor.execute {
            callback.onComplete(Unit)
        }
        return CompletedAsyncOperationTask
    }

    /**
     * Invoked when search records become available.
     */
    private fun onDataLoaded(customData: List<CustomIndexableRecord>) {
        synchronized(this) {
            records.addAll(customData)
            dataProviderEngines.forEach { engine ->
                engine.upsertAll(records)
            }
        }
    }

    // ...

    private object CompletedAsyncOperationTask : AsyncOperationTask {

        override val isDone: Boolean
            get() = true

        override val isCancelled: Boolean
            get() = false

        override fun cancel() {
            // Do nothing
        }
    }
}

IndexableDataProviderEngine is thread-safe and can be called from different threads.

Built-in data providers

The Mapbox Search SDK for Android has built-in data providers that are already attached to each instance of SearchEngine and CategorySearchEngine.

Favorites Data Provider

The main purpose of FavoritesDataProvider is to store each user's favorite places, POIs, and addresses.

To obtain an instance of the favorites data provider and invoke the ServiceProvider.INSTANCE.favoritesDataProvider() method:

val favoritesDataProvider = ServiceProvider.INSTANCE.favoritesDataProvider()

The priority of the favorite data provider is equal to FavoritesDataProvider.priotiry.

The favorite data provider stores data in FavoriteRecord. One unique feature of this record is that the user doesn't have to specify IndexableRecord.indexTokens. Index tokens will be constructed from IndexableRecord.address data.

Use the FavoritesDataProvider.getAll() method to get all favorite records:

val task = favoritesDataProvider.getAll(object : CompletionCallback<List<FavoriteRecord>> {
    override fun onComplete(result: List<FavoriteRecord>) {
    }

    override fun onError(e: Exception) {
    }
})

History Data Provider

The main purpose of HistoryDataProvider is to keep information about recently accessed SearchResults. The Search SDK UI module uses data from the history data provider to prepare and show the "Recent searches" section in SearchResultsView.

To obtain an instance of the history data provider and invoke the ServiceProvider.INSTANCE.historyDataProvider() method:

val historyDataProvider = ServiceProvider.INSTANCE.historyDataProvider()

The priority of the history data provider is equal to HistoryDataProvider.priority.

The history data provider stores data in HistoryRecord. Similar to FavoriteRecord, this record constructs IndexableRecord.indexTokens from IndexableRecord.address data. Also, HistoryRecord introduces new property: timestamp. HistoryDataProvider and the Search SDK UI module use this property to sort history records by relevance.

Use the HistoryDataProvider.getAll() method to get all history records:

val task = historyDataProvider.getAll(object : CompletionCallback<List<HistoryRecord>> {
    override fun onComplete(result: List<HistoryRecord>) {
    }

    override fun onError(e: Exception) {
    }
})

Custom data providers

The Mapbox Search SDK for Android allows you create your own data providers if you want to introduce custom POIs or addresses to the search engine during the search.

First, you should create a record class that will store all the data about places, POIs, and addresses that you have. Implement an IndexableRecord interface. We recommend using a Kotlin data class and @Parcelize annotation from the kotlin-parcelize plugin to ease implementation:

@Parcelize
data class CustomRecord(
    override val id: String,
    override val name: String,
    override val coordinate: Point,
    override val type: SearchResultType,
    override val descriptionText: String?,
    override val address: SearchAddress?,
    override val routablePoints: List<RoutablePoint>?,
    override val categories: List<String>?,
    override val makiIcon: String?,
    override val metadata: SearchResultMetadata?,
    override val indexTokens: List<String>,
) : IndexableRecord

Then, implement an IndexableDataProvider interface that will be used as a source of custom records and will update the search engine index associated with the provided IndexableDataProviderEngine instance.

And finally, register custom data provider in your SearchEngine:

val searchEngine: SearchEngine = //...
val customDataProvider: CustomDataProvider = // ...
val task = searchEngine.registerDataProvider(
    customDataProvider,
    callback = object : CompletionCallback<Unit> {
        override fun onComplete(result: Unit) {
        }

        override fun onError(e: Exception) {
        }
    }
)

val task = searchEngine.unregisterDataProvider(
    customDataProvider,
    callback = object : CompletionCallback<Unit> {
        override fun onComplete(result: Unit) {
        }

        override fun onError(e: Exception) {
        }
    }
)