android-intent-service.md

Title: Android: Intent Service Tags: android|android-service|android-intent-service Date: 2013-01-09 15:11:48 -0500 Author: Denevell

You can call a Intent service like so:

 Intent intentService = new Intent(this, IntentServiceExample.class);
 intentService.putExtra(IntentServiceExample.STRING_TO_OUTPUT, "Stuff");
 startService(intentService);

This pre supposes a IntentServiceExample class, which you first need to define in your AndroidManifest.xml

 <service android:name="its.package.IntentServiceExample" android:exported="true"/>

The class looks like so

  public class IntentServiceExample extends IntentService {
        private static final String TAG = IntentServiceExample.class.getSimpleName();
        public IntentServiceExample() {
            super("ExampleIntentService");
        }
 
        @Override
        protected void onHandleIntent(Intent intent) {
          // Code goes here
        }
  }

All the action happens in onHandleIntent(). You can get the passed in bundle value via:

 String s = intentService.getStringExtra(STRING_TO_OUTPUT);

And do anything else you wish. To communicate back with the activity you can pass in a PendingIntent to give the service something to talk to your Activity with:

 PendingIntent pix = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(
  this,
  0,
  new Intent(this, OurBroadcastReceiver.class),
  PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT);

 intentService.putExtra(IntentServiceExample.KEY_PENDING_INTENT, pix);

The OurBroadcastReceiver is the class where you will receive whatever the services tells you via a passed in Intent:

 public static class OurBroadcastReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {
        @Override
        public void onReceive(Context arg0, Intent arg1) {
          String s = arg1.getStringExtra("something"));
        }
 }

You use the pending intent on the service side like so:

 PendingIntent pi  = intent.getParcelableExtra(KEY_PENDING_INTENT);
  
 Intent i = new Intent(); 
 i.putExtra("something", "some text");
 pi.send(applicationContext, 0, "something");

And then the broadcast receiver will receive it.