Android: Send arbitrary objects within Activities?

Question

I have read some question here but I didn't find a solution. I have read about Parcelable, Intents, and sharing specific data within Activities from the android dev docs (both dev guide and reference).

Here's the scenario:

I have one ListActivity that fills in an object parsing an xml file, it shows a list of values, and when clicked I want to return the object that represents the item clicked to the activity that has called it, for then, call another activity with this object.

I read on how to implement Parcelable but seems not being the way. Implementing Parcelable receives a Parcel for the constructor and then reads the values from it (or at least that was what I understood). This makes no sense for me and I can't see how to implement basing on that issue. I build the object parsing the xml file, not having a Parcel.

I appreciate some clarifications on this, regards.

Answer 1

I believe you have three options here:

1. Pass some arbitrary 'id' of the object to the new activity in the intent extras, which obtains the object in the same way as the first activity. This I would recommend as it is in harmony with the way Android is designed to work.
2. Serialize the object using Java Serializable, then put it into the intent as an extra.
3. Have the object be a JSONObject and send it as a string in the intent extras.