Flutter BLoC library: Where to keep the TextEditingController object: in State, in BLoC / Cubit class or in the widget?

Question

While using BLoC library we store all the variables in a state class. But where to store TextEditingController, which does not change, but the value of it does?

Let's say I have a state class like this (Just as example):

@freezed
abstract class EditItemState with _$EditItemState {
  const factory EditItemState.updated({
    TextEditingController titleController,
    ShoppingItem shoppingItem,
  }) = _ShoppingListLoaded;
}

And the Cubit class:

class EditItemCubit extends Cubit<EditItemState> {
  EditItemCubit() : super(EditItemState.updated());

  Future<void> titleUpdated() async {
    emit(
      EditItemState.updated().copyWith(
        shoppingItem: state.shoppingItem.copyWith(
          title: state.titleController.text,
        ),
      ),
    );
  }
}

So the Cubit class logic looks messy. I suggest to keep such controllers directly in the widget or in BLoC/Cubit class. Is it a correct approach?

Answer 1

Here guys asked the same question from the library authors and the answer of Felix Angelov (author of flutter_bloc) is:

I would highly recommend against maintaining TextEditingController as part of the bloc. Blocs should ideally be platform-agnostic and have no dependency on Flutter. If you need to use TextEditingControllers I would recommend creating a StatefulWidget and maintaining them as part of the State class. Then you can interface with the control in response to state changes via BlocListener