Network Service needs to return a callback

Question

I have a Networking service that i want to use as a Service. It's a local Service since it's not valid anymore once the application process is dead and no Other applications need to access it.(or should...).

I was pondering if to use the IBinder interface with local reference to the class and decided not to, for the moment.

I have the following issues:

1. if the service dies, and i know it can during request processing, it's an issue for me, first i've seen it, the process wont die until the net request returns (then the thread dies gracefully), unless kill -9 is used on the process... then i'm not sure what android does with the connections. I'm not sure what's the approach i should take here.(it will be true though even if this was a local thread and not a service...)
2. if i want the service to listen on a callback and call it once the network processing is done, i'm in a problem, no instances can be passed on using Intents. So i need some other solutions, all the ones i though of sounds bad to me: A. use IBinder to get instance of the network service class then i can call one of it's methods and pass on an instance, this will work since they all run in the same process, BUT requires me to use Async way to get a Network instance which is not so suitable for me. B. Use static member in the Service i can access, then what to i need the service for ? C. use intent to send parameters only to the service, the service will compose a Request out of it and put it in the queue, then once done will send a response using intent which will encapsulate the response (which might be long!) and will also contain the name of the calling class as a string so all the Receivers will know if it's for them or not - BIG overhead of encapsulating data in Intent and search in all the receivers for the right one to get the response.

I don't want to use the service as a local running simple thread since i'm afraid if i'll run it in the root activity i will have to use static container so it will be visible in each activity and if the root will be destroyed for some reason it will take all the service with it, even if i start new task and the process is still alive...

Anyone got some nice ideas on how to approach this thing ?

Answer 1

Eventually i gave up on the service. The reason to not use the service But to extend Application object and keep the networking class as a member of that Application object, it is started when the application is created, before any activity is created,and it is shut down before the application draws it's last breath. I know application onTerminate might not be called at all times, but if someone will call kill -9 or equivalent on my Application and the process will die killing the application with it, i'm all set as my Service will be destroyed anyway. The reasons i gave up a service were:

1. i have a way to keep a worker thread running during the application life cycle.
2. Since i have and for future planning will have only one application it will still work in the future.
3. Since It's not connected and started with any specific Activity it wont be affected by their death or by their creations.
4. it has a context that will last through the lifecycle of the application so i CAN use it to broadcast events using intents.
5. when the application dies my service dies with it. unless kill -9 and then the system will kill all threads related to the application, mine included, so i'm still good.
6. Every activity can use getApplication() and cast to my Application object and get the service.

So no need to use binding and complicate my code with it, no need to think of how to start or end the service, if i'd made a service most chances i'll be starting it from the Application anyway (or the root activity), so i think for me and my app this is the best option.