In Android: How to Call Function of Activity from a Service?

Question

Hi folks,

I have an Activity (A) and a Service (S) which gets started by A like this:

Intent i = new Intent();
i.putExtra("updateInterval", 10);
i.setClassName("com.blah", "com.blah.S");
startService(i);

A have a function like this one in A:

public void someInfoArrived(Info i){...}

Now I want to call A.someInfoArrived(i) from within S. Intent.putExtra has no version where I could pass an Object reference etc ... Please help!

PS: The other way around (A polling S for new info) is NOT what I need. I found enough info about how to do that.

Answer 1

One option is to switch from startService() to bindService() and use the local binding pattern. Then, you need to have A call a method on S at some point to register a listener or callback method. Then, S will have something it can call on A when some info arrives. You can see a sample project for that here.

Alternatively, you could leave startService() in place and use a broadcast Intent to let S tell A about some info arriving. You can see a sample project demonstrating such a broadcast Intent here.