How do I get data from a running service

Question

I have just started using services in Android and I have a made a simple service that is polling a server every 20 seconds.

Now how can I get this data from my main activity (when it is active)?

Alternatively the service could send it back do my main activity (but only if its active). I don't want to wake up my activity.

I have read SDK examples of "Binding" but I can't find an example how to actually get something from the service. Just how to start and stop the Binding.

From the example. If I have the "mBoundService" object in my activity how do I get my data from the service method called eg. "pollingData()"?

Answer 1

My suggestion would be to send out a broadcast using sendBroadcast() from the service and then use a BroadcastReceiver as an inner class in your main activity. Depending on your service you can just attach the data to the intent using putExtras() and getExtras()

Hope this helps!

A practical example:

public class x extends Service {

//Code for your service goes here

   public talk() {
      Intent i = new Intent();
      i.putExtras("Extra data name", "Super secret data");
      i.setAction("FILTER");
      sendBroadcast(i);
   }
}

Then in the class the service is talking to:

public class y extends Activity {

   //Code for your activity goes here

   BroadcastReceiver br = new BroadcastReceiver() {
      public void onReceive(Intent i) {
         String str = (String) i.getExtras().get("Extra data name").toString();
      }

   OnResume() {
      super.OnResume();
      IntentFilter filt = new IntentFilter("FILTER");
      this.registerReceiver(br, filt);

      //Do your other stuff
   }

   OnPause() {
      super.OnPause();
      unregisterReceiver(br);
   }

Hope this example is about what you are looking for, let me know if you need any more details.