GsonSerializer implementation in SupabaseSerializer

[talhatek]

Hi 👋

I was exploring the supabase-kt library and noticed that there isn’t a built-in serializer using Gson. It would be useful to have an implementation like the following:

class GsonSerializer(private val gson: Gson = Gson()) : SupabaseSerializer {

    override fun <T : Any> encode(type: KType, value: T): String {
        return gson.toJson(value)
    }

    override fun <T : Any> decode(type: KType, value: String): T {
        val typeToken = TypeToken.get(type.javaType)
        @Suppress("UNCHECKED_CAST")
        return gson.fromJson(value, typeToken.type) as T
    }
}

Is there a reason Gson isn’t included as an option in supabase-kt?

Thanks for your work on this library.

[manriif]

You should definitely avoid using Gson in a Kotlin project.
It’s better to migrate to kotlinx-serialization.
Here you can find more details on why Gson should be avoided.

I believe adding an implementation based on a discouraged API is not a good idea. In the case of Gson, its usage may lead to unexpected behavior and runtime errors.

[jan-tennert]

Yea this is the reason. If you really want to use it, you can just create your own serializer as you have shown

[talhatek]

I understand the concerns about Gson, but not everyone is working with a shiny new codebase that can fully leverage kotlinx.serialization. 😄 Even Ktor supports Gson serialization for similar reason, legacy compatibility and flexibility. I think keeping this example in the discussion could help folks with older projects who need a quick solution. 🙏