Android Rest Architecture - android

My android application needs to communicate with a couple of Rest Services. Now i am decided to avoid using AsyncTasks for this. My architecture will be based on one Service and a couple of Intent Services. Each of my activity will send an intent containing parameters to a single service. Based on these parameters, the Service will invoke various IntentServices. The intent service will then perform the network operations and broadcast the result back into the calling activity. Is this approach correct ? Might be an idea for the Activity to directly invoke the IntentService ? What are the cons of this approach ?
Kind Regards

Use robospice :)
Motivation :
http://thumbnails.visually.netdna-cdn.com/RoboSpice_508a372b320e5.png

the WebApp i.e. the REST service should answer with a response very quickly (so the client app doesn't lock). If your request takes some time to process, the response should be 202. So you may have to look up that resource again, and that is indeed a nice job for AsyncTasks.

You can use RESTDroid that implements the service pattern designed by Virgil Dobjanschi in the Google IO video

Related

What's the best way to implement TCP client in Android

I need to implement some async client in android app for communication with external device. I need this client to start connection with specified socket on different thread and then implement some methods which will be sending data to external device, all this methods need to be asynchronous. What is more I need to have guarentee that Android won't kill my process.
This client needs to be working w Dependency Injection. I would like to create single instance of this client being injected and used across many activities.
What I took into consideration is:
AsyncTask - heard that it is for only short tasks
Thread - I am struggling with implementing other methods despite run which will be asnychronous and able to be called
Service - I can't make it asynchronous
ServiceIntent - I am not sure if it is the best pick for implemeneting async methods.
I need your suggestions which way would be best with simple explanation why.

Performing Request After Android Service Binding

I have a two part question. Both are somewhat general.
I'm creating an app that relies heavily on communication with a server. I plan to have different classes for each repository I'll need. Is an Android service the correct pattern to use here? There may be certain situations where I'll want to cache things between activities. Will a service allow me to do this?
Assuming a service is what I want to use for this, how can I load content once the service is bound. When the user opens the app, I want to start loading content. However, binding a service isn't blocking, so I can't write the code that makes requests with the service in my onStart() right? Is there some helper class that will wait for the service to load then execute a function? I know I could put some code in my onServiceConnected() method but I'd like to stay away from coupling like that.
Hopefully that wasn't too abstract. Thanks in advance.
Yes, Service is the way to go, but a started service, not a bound one.
You could make async request methods, and the Service can broadcast the result back to your Activity.
The async request in this case is a startService(intent) with an
Intent containing the request parameters. The service would start a background thread for the operation, optimally you can use a networking library for this (for example Volley).
And the reply is a broadcast by the Service with the relevant data.
This answers the problem of caching, because the Service can decide what to return. So in case the Service does not have the requested resource, it will download (and return) it. But if the Service has the resource, then it will just simply return the cached version.
To start, you should get yourself familiar with these topics:
Started Services (for the requests)
LocalBroadcastReceiver (for the reply)
Event Bus (alternative to LocalBroadcastReceiver, for example Otto)
I don't know much about your concrete needs, but it seems like you want to implement a REST client with cache. There is a really good Google IO presentation on that here. Definately worth to watch!
1)If you need code to run even when your Activity isn't, the correct answer is a Service. If you just need to cache data, then storing it in a global static variable somewhere may be ok.
2)Your service can start a Thread or AsyncTask. These execute in parallel. onStartCommand generally launches it in this case.
As with most things, the answer to these questions are subjective at best. I would need more information then I currently have, but I'll take a vague, general stab at this...
If you need something persistently hitting your server repeatedly I would say use a service.
Where you call it is not nearly as important as how many times it needs to be called. That being said the answer is yes. If you need this data as soon as the application or activity loads, then the onCreate method is where it needs to be loaded.
My reccomendation is either A) service or B)AsyncTask.
Go with A if you have to hit the server repeatedly for data and need it in regular intervals. Otherwise go with an AsyncTask and load all the data you need into an object for storage. Then you can use it as you need and it will essentially be "cached".
The difference between the two is simply "best tool for the job". I see you use some javascript. To give a proper analogy, using a service for a server call rather than an async task, is the equivalent of using a web socket (node js) when you could of just used an ajax call. Hope this helps. Oh and PS, please don't use static variables in Android =).

Is handling http calls from multiple intent services good approach?

I'm developing restful android application, but I'm still newbie to android, and I would like to avoid beginners bed structural design that would cost me troubles latter.
I've read lots of discussions about android services and restful applications, many of them contrary to each other, so I would like to know have I choosen a good approach.
Inspired by this presentation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHXn3Kg2IQE I put my http requests into IntentServices, instead of the Async Task.
I've choose Intent Service because of:
as a services they are not sensitive to foreground/background switching like Activities (won't get killed).
Intent service provides work in separate thread, so the user interface stays responsive.
Since Intent Service cannot run multiple request simultaneously, I've "split" my domain into few groups and for each group I have written my Intent Service. (ends up in: one CRUD set -> one intent service)
This way I got that inside of a group can be only one request running at a time (And this is good for me, since this way it could never be executed for example update and delete at same unit).
And, on the other side, I can run multiple requests at the same time if they are from the other groups, and don't affect each other.
So basically, I have this:
one generic HTTPRequest class that builds requests from name value pairs
UserIntentService - creates user related requests and executes it by using HTTPRequest cass, and proccess request using UserProcessor. Notifies caller by intent with data.
CallIntentService - creates call related requests and executes it by using HTTPRequest cass
and proccess request using CallProcessor. Notifies caller by intent with data.
UserProcessor - parsing response
CallProcessor - parsing response
ServiceHelper - finds and starts right intent service
When using from activity, I use something like this: SeviceHelper.StartService (action, data),
and I get response by local BroadcastReceiver inside of the activity. I register receiver on the OnStart(), and unregister it on the onStop() method of the activity.
Is that a good approach?
Should I have only one IntentService for all calls?
Is it better to have one Service that runs all the time in background, instead of using Intent Service that has to be started for each request?
Is there any other things that can get bad with this approach that I'm missing?

what is the best/preferred approach to implement multi-threading in android app

I'm a beginner in android development and I'm trying to implement an android udp client, which connects to a java server and sends/receives some packets from it.In this process it collects some data (like round-trip delay etc), which is used to measure the QoS of that particular network. I have tried implementing the connection and sending/receiving data using Java Threads, but the application crashes, and hangs if i try to use more than 2 threads. So I'm looking for alternatives. While going through this site as well as some other links I found that in android multiple threads can be implemented using AsyncTask, Handler etc. Also I found that the Service class also helps to run a background service in an app. Please suggest which approach among these would be the best to achieve my purpose.
Thanks in advance.
You can use AasyncTask to do this and as you mentioned service may be useful too, where u can let your application do whatever it wants in background , if user needs to use application by its interface then AsyncTask must be used to avoid Crashing
There is not one right answer that can be applied as a broad stroke to how to do Android multi-threading. There are a few different ways to approach it based on what your specific needs are.
Any long running, blocking call, in Android will result in the application crashing.
The most common solution is to use an AsyncTask though. For example, when I want to make a call out to a web API endpoint for some XML data within an Activity I would in this case use an AsyncTask and kick off the calls from within doInBackground.
This is not an appropriate solution though if the wait time is longer, or possibly an unknown wait time. Or in a situation where there will always be waiting such as a message queuing service. In this type of situation it may be best to write a separate app based on extending the Service class. Then you can send/receive notifications to/from the service from your primary application in a similar manner to how you would communicate with a web service.

Android service-to-activity communication performance

I can find several examples of how to build a service, but I'm having a difficult time finding a working example of how to send messages between an Activity and a Service. From what I can find, I think my options are to use Intents, AIDL, or to use the service object itself as per this question.
In my case, my activity is the only activity that will ever access the service, so a local service will do. When the activity is open, I want to see some status messages from the service, which will be coming in at up to 20 Hz. Are there any limitations on how many messages per second those communications methods will support? Basically, which method is going to be best for my situation?
Thanks.
Since your Actvity and Service are a part of the same app, then no need to use AIDL. You may simply use your Service as a local one.
The limitation is only affected by the performance of your device. There is no cap on requests per second.
Usually there is a context switch involved, that uses quite a lot of cpu (compared to other parts of the transmission), but since you use a local service you don't suffer from that. In any case, 20Hz is not a problem.
The best solution for you would be to use AIDL, and set up a callback that the service can call to report its status.
There is good example of how this is done in the APIDemos.

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