Ideal way to cancel an executing AsyncTask

Question

I am running remote audio-file-fetching and audio file playback operations in a background thread using AsyncTask. A Cancellable progress bar is shown for the time the fetch operation runs.

I want to cancel/abort the AsyncTask run when the user cancels (decides against) the operation. What is the ideal way to handle such a case?

Answer 1

Simple: don't use an AsyncTask. AsyncTask is designed for short operations that end quickly (tens of seconds) and therefore do not need to be canceled. "Audio file playback" does not qualify. You don't even need a background thread for ordinary audio file playback.

Answer 2

Just discovered that AlertDialogs's boolean cancel(...); I've been using everywhere actually does nothing. Great.
So...

public class MyTask extends AsyncTask<Void, Void, Void> {

    private volatile boolean running = true;
    private final ProgressDialog progressDialog;

    public MyTask(Context ctx) {
        progressDialog = gimmeOne(ctx);

        progressDialog.setCancelable(true);
        progressDialog.setOnCancelListener(new OnCancelListener() {
            @Override
            public void onCancel(DialogInterface dialog) {
                // actually could set running = false; right here, but I'll
                // stick to contract.
                cancel(true);
            }
        });

    }

    @Override
    protected void onPreExecute() {
        progressDialog.show();
    }

    @Override
    protected void onCancelled() {
        running = false;
    }

    @Override
    protected Void doInBackground(Void... params) {

        while (running) {
            // does the hard work
        }
        return null;
    }

    // ...

}

Answer 3

The only way to do it is by checking the value of the isCancelled() method and stopping playback when it returns true.