How to update Android ListView with dynamic data in real time?

Question

I have a background thread loading data which I want to display in an Android ListView. The data changes very often (i.e. 1-2 times per second). Sometimes the number of ro

Answer 1

I experimented with ListView, and you essentially have to update the ListView cells manually without calling notifyDataSetChanged() if you have realtime data and you want the ListView to update with better performance.

notifyDataSetChanged() causes the ListView to rebuild its entire View hierarchy is very slow if you are calling it frequently (i.e. once every second).

Note (2014). This DOES NOT APPLY if you are using normal modern ListView with a ViewHolder pattern. You simply call 'notifyDataSetChanged' and that's all there is to it. It is incredibly efficient as Android knows to only update the cells on the screen.

I implemented a scheme where if my data set size changed from one update to the next, I call notifyDataSetChanged(). If the data set size remained constant from one update to the next (such that the number of cells in the ListView is the same as before when a redraw of the data is needed), then I iterate over the ListView.getFirstVisiblePosition() : getLastVisiblePosition(), and update the visible cells only.