precacheImage function

Future<void> precacheImage(
  1. ImageProvider<Object> provider,
  2. BuildContext context,
  3. {Size? size,
  4. ImageErrorListener? onError}
)

Prefetches an image into the image cache.

Returns a Future that will complete when the first image yielded by the ImageProvider is available or failed to load.

If the image is later used by an Image or BoxDecoration or FadeInImage, it will probably be loaded faster. The consumer of the image does not need to use the same ImageProvider instance. The ImageCache will find the image as long as both images share the same key, and the image is held by the cache.

The cache may refuse to hold the image if it is disabled, the image is too large, or some other criteria implemented by a custom ImageCache implementation.

The ImageCache holds a reference to all images passed to ImageCache.putIfAbsent as long as their ImageStreamCompleter has at least one listener. This method will wait until the end of the frame after its future completes before releasing its own listener. This gives callers a chance to listen to the stream if necessary. A caller can determine if the image ended up in the cache by calling ImageProvider.obtainCacheStatus. If it is only held as ImageCacheStatus.live, and the caller wishes to keep the resolved image in memory, the caller should immediately call provider.resolve and add a listener to the returned ImageStream. The image will remain pinned in memory at least until the caller removes its listener from the stream, even if it would not otherwise fit into the cache.

Callers should be cautious about pinning large images or a large number of images in memory, as this can result in running out of memory and being killed by the operating system. The lower the available physical memory, the more susceptible callers will be to running into OOM issues. These issues manifest as immediate process death, sometimes with no other error messages.

The BuildContext and Size are used to select an image configuration (see createLocalImageConfiguration).

The returned future will not complete with error, even if precaching failed. The onError argument can be used to manually handle errors while pre-caching.

See also:

  • ImageCache, which holds images that may be reused.

Implementation

Future<void> precacheImage(
  ImageProvider provider,
  BuildContext context, {
  Size? size,
  ImageErrorListener? onError,
}) {
  final ImageConfiguration config = createLocalImageConfiguration(context, size: size);
  final Completer<void> completer = Completer<void>();
  final ImageStream stream = provider.resolve(config);
  ImageStreamListener? listener;
  listener = ImageStreamListener(
    (ImageInfo? image, bool sync) {
      if (!completer.isCompleted) {
        completer.complete();
      }
      // Give callers until at least the end of the frame to subscribe to the
      // image stream.
      // See ImageCache._liveImages
      SchedulerBinding.instance.addPostFrameCallback((Duration timeStamp) {
        stream.removeListener(listener!);
      }, debugLabel: 'precacheImage.removeListener');
    },
    onError: (Object exception, StackTrace? stackTrace) {
      if (!completer.isCompleted) {
        completer.complete();
      }
      stream.removeListener(listener!);
      if (onError != null) {
        onError(exception, stackTrace);
      } else {
        FlutterError.reportError(FlutterErrorDetails(
          context: ErrorDescription('image failed to precache'),
          library: 'image resource service',
          exception: exception,
          stack: stackTrace,
          silent: true,
        ));
      }
    },
  );
  stream.addListener(listener);
  return completer.future;
}