How to pass a parameter from an activity to a service...when the user stop the service

Question

I have an activity with a checkbox: if the chekbox is unchecked then stop the service. this is a snippet of my activity code:

    Intent serviceIntent = new Intent();
    serviceIntent.setAction("com.android.savebattery.SaveBatteryService");

    if (*unchecked*){
        serviceIntent.putExtra("user_stop", true);
        stopService(serviceIntent);

when I stop the service I pass a parameter "user_stop" to say at the service that has been a user to stop it and not the system (for low memory).

now I have to read the variable "user_stop" in void onDestroy of my service:

public void onDestroy() {
super.onDestroy();

Intent recievedIntent = getIntent(); 
boolean userStop= recievedIntent.getBooleanExtra("user_stop");

    if (userStop) {
       *** notification code ****

but it doesn't work! I can't use getIntent() in onDestroy!

any suggestion?

thanks

Simone

Solution 1

I see two ways of doing this:

1. Using Shared Preferences.
2. Using local broadcasts.

---

The first approach is an easy and straightforward way. But it is not very flexible. Basically you do:

• a. Set "user stop" shared preference to true.
• b. Stop service
• c. In you service in onDestroy check what is the value of "user stop" preference.

---

The other approach is a better way but requires more code.

• a. Define a string constant in you service class:

final public static string USER_STOP_SERVICE_REQUEST = "USER_STOP_SERVICE".

• b. Create an inner class BroadcastReceiver class:

  public class UserStopServiceReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver  
  {  
      @Override  
      public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent)  
      {  
          //code that handles user specific way of stopping service   
      }  
  }
  

• c. Register this receiver in onCreate or onStart method:

  registerReceiver(new UserStopServiceReceiver(),  newIntentFilter(USER_STOP_SERVICE_REQUEST));

• d. From any place you want to stop your service:

  context.sendBroadcast(new Intent(USER_STOP_SERVICE_REQUEST));

Note that you can pass any custom arguments through Intent using this approach.

Solution 2

I don't think relying on onDestroy() is a good thing. There are couple of approaches you can take.

1. suggest to bind the service so that you could write your userstop notification in onUnbind http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/fundamentals.html#servlife

2. Other option (not sure if this works) is to post your variable to SharedPreferences and obtain it from onDestroy(). [You need to check if this works in debug mode or LogCat messages.