Flutter — How to deal with unwanted widget build

The build method is designed in such a way that it should be pure/without side effects. This is because many external factors can trigger a new widget build, such as:

• Route pop/push
• Screen resize, usually due to keyboard appearance or orientation change
• Parent widget recreated its child
• An InheritedWidget the widget depends on (Class.of(context) pattern) change

This means that the build method should not trigger an http call or modify any state.

How is this related to the question?

The problem you are facing is that your build method has side-effects/is not pure, making extraneous build call troublesome.

Instead of preventing build call, you should make your build method pure, so that it can be called anytime without impact.

In the case of your example, you’d transform your widget into a StatefulWidget then extract that HTTP call to the initState of your State:

class Example extends StatefulWidget {
  @override
  _ExampleState createState() => _ExampleState();
}
class _ExampleState extends…