Recently I have started development in Java for Android.
My idea is to create one static class which will load ton of stuff on the beginning and store results for a lifetime of application.
I have been reading lot of how to share object between activities and I think the best will be to create one static class. What do you think? Should I use another approach? I am asking because I have read lot of counter opinions over the internet.
Thank you.
I'm assuming that you were referring to static fields of a class, as opposed to static class which, as Wyzard pointed out, is something completely different. As a general rule of thumb, holding information in static fields is not a good idea in Java. The reason for this is that it prevents the ability to instantiate multiple instances of whatever it is you store in the class.
In the specific case of an Android application, the best way to deal with the issue of having data stored associated with the application itself is to subclass the android.app.Application class and use it to handle application-global data:
class FooApplication extends Application
{
private String privData;
public String getPrivData() {
return privData;
}
}
You then need to declare that this class is your main application class (instead of the default Application). In the application entry in AndroidManifest.xml add the following:
<application android:name="com.example.application.FooApplication"
...>
...
</application>
You can then look up the application instance from anywhere inside your application using the method Context.getApplicationContext() which will be an instance of your Application subclass:
FooApplication app = (FooApplication)Context.getApplicationContext();
String privData = app.getPrivData();
Depending on from where you are trying to look for subclass of "Application", you may have to invoke the "getApplicationContext()" without "Context":
FooApplication app = (FooApplication)getApplicationContext();
String privData = app.getPrivData();
The problem with your solution is that you're basically creating a huge stack of globals. It's sometimes unavoidable, but it has the same type of problems globals always have- you quickly end up with hard to read code that doesn't really have a good OO breakdown. You can use this, but use it sparingly- only with important data structures that are really going to be shared between many activities.
Android provides a class called Application, which is will not be gc'ed as long as your Application isn't killed. Use this class for initialization, static classes as containers are somewhat ugly, but i can't pinpoint why that is.
I only use them as containers for constants such as bitmasks which can't be expressed as EnumSets.
As the other posts mention SharedPreferences: I think the preferences exist to store values, but not to load your structures that you need for you application. These structures should be loaded from a construct that represent or make up a model for your data's semantics.
Related
I'm working on an Android app that uses some background tasks (AsyncTasks) and I want to use best practices regarding data persistence across app lifecycle and tasks callbacks.
Up to now, I have a mix of practices regarding this:
1) I have some static fields in classes where AsyncTasks are used in the form of:
private static String str1;
private static String str2;
private static int int1;
...//=>no more than 6 static fields
2) I use a sinleton App instance with many getters/setters in the form of:
package xxx.xxx.xxx
import xxx.xxx.xxx
...
public class AppSettings {
private static AppSettings singleton;
private String _field1;
...//=>many fields
public void setField1(String field1) { _field1 = field1; }
public String getField1() { return _field1; }
...//=>many getters/setters
private AppSettings() {}
public AppSettings getInstance(){
if (instance== null) {
synchronized(AppSettings.class) {
if (instance == null)
instance = new AppSettings();
}
}
return instance;
}
}
I definitely know that abusing of static fields is not good at all, so I decided to replace them all, but I'm not completely sure if my second approach -having an application instance in a singleton with many getters/setters- is considered a good way to go, and in case not, I would like to know about better alternatives.
Thank you very much.
Edit 1: Just to clarify.
In order for you to understand more clearly what I use my AppSettings singleton class for I'll give you two examples:
1) I use it to store app setting/configuration values (that's why the name) to be available anywhere. For example, font color, font size, whatever.
2) I use it to store temporary data/values. For example, my main activity creates a small video in the backgroung using "VideoHelper" class and called through an AsyncTask, and as video generation process needs some parameters from main activity, I use AppSettings getters/setters to send them through.
Edit 2: Better explanation of everything.
Thanks to #a_local_nobody I realized my "case of use" was not so clear so I'll add a few things more.
My AppSettings is not being used to store user settings, I use SharedPreferences for that, but instead app default configuration parameters.
To give an example, I store activities background color (and this is just an example) so if in the future I change my mind and decide to use another background color this setting (and many more) are centralized there. It's like a "container" for many default app settings.
Regarding the use of getters and setters in this app singleton class, I think I'll foloww #a_local_nobody suggestion related to define some static variables in each class and use them as needed instead of having a bunch of unrelated getters/setters globally.
Anyway, all comments are welcome.
Well, you are talking about persisting data across app lifecycle which, in my mind, sounds like you're looking for a ViewModel:
The ViewModel class is designed to store and manage UI-related data in
a lifecycle conscious way. The ViewModel class allows data to survive
configuration changes such as screen rotations.
as well as:
The purpose of the ViewModel is to acquire and keep the information
that is necessary for an Activity or a Fragment. The Activity or the
Fragment should be able to observe changes in the ViewModel.
ViewModels form part of the MVVM design pattern, with loads of examples available online.
For more info, have a look at the documentation
on a side-note, perhaps you can have a look at the google sunflower project for some ideas on how to implement the new architecture components, which includes usages of ViewModels.
Also worth adding, is that what you've created with your AppSettings solution, is a big dependency. Various things will depend on this single object and it will be needed throughout your application, most likely. You might consider, instead of creating it like this, to rather use dependency injection with your options, for android, probably being either Dagger 2 or Koin for kotlin (if you ever swap over to kotlin) or perhaps your own form of dependency injection without having to use these frameworks.
Hope this helps
Edit based on feedback from OP:
I use it to store app setting/configuration values (that's why the
name) to be available anywhere. For example, font color, font size,
whatever.
this sounds like a better use case for Shared preferences, especially if these are settings defined by a user, otherwise you should be savings these into strings.xml etc. and making use of localization
I use it to store temporary data/values. For example, my main activity
creates a small video in the background using "VideoHelper" class and
called through an AsyncTask, and as video generation process needs
some parameters from main activity, I use AppSettings getters/setters
to send them through.
if you have a VideoHelper class, you might be better off either creating a Builder design pattern for this object, or having static variables for this helper to change its functionality as you need to, if these are variables for your VideoHelper, then they should be located with your VideoHelper.
Things which change together should usually stay together.
Your approach doesn't qualify as "best practices" in modern android development.
The recommended way of handling configuration changes is by using the new architecture component: ViewModel
It have the property of surviving the onDestroy triggered when a configuration change occurs.
Basically, you will need to move this AppSettings code to a ViewModel.
I am fairly new to android and after reading a book and taking alot of tutorials i am about to create my first "real" app.
My question is rather simple does: Is the mediator design pattern still a good choice when designing android apps?
If yes is there any design patterns you should avoid when programming android apps?
if no is there any substitude to the mediator pattern you could use to have a collection of your instances of the different objects?
I suggest creating a model class (let's call it MyModel) and creating object of this class in Application.onCreate (not Activity.onCreate).
After that adding getter for that, so you can get this model from any Activity or Service like this:
MyApplication app = (MyApplication) getApplication();
MyModel model = app.getMyModel();
User user = model.getCurrentUser();
etc.
Also creating BaseActivity class can save you typing if you create method there protected MyModel getModel() which returns model from the first 2 lines of the code above.
Edit:
You need to create a class that extends Application and register this class in AndroidManifest.xml.
This is how: https://stackoverflow.com/a/2929927/2183804
Edit (about singleton):
It is said to be an anti-pattern (not only on Android). In Android I have seen people ending with singleton with accessor like MySingleton.getInstance(Context), because they needed Context anyway, e.g. for SharedPrefs or DB access. This is what Application is for, so there is no need to create additional, hackish entity, which could be used in a wrong way: MySingleton.getInstance(null) from a place where there is no Context available. This could lead to NPE after process is killed and restarted.
I have created an application which uses a lot of custom objects I've created to manage parts of the application.
for example:
FacebookManager class - responsible for connecting to facebook
DatabaseManager class - responsible for application's database connection
etc...
these classes must be reachable for all application's classes.
i've extend the Application class and i'm sharing the Application instance between class so every class will be able to reach the global objects (and some more methods).
i'm wondering if this is the correct way of doing what i want, or should i create a class with static methods for the same propose.
I've read a lot about it and understood that from the memory point of view - non of these ways are best.
is there a way to save an object to the SharedPereferences and get it from another class ?
or any other idea ?
If your classes contain no states but only utility methods - you can arrange them as Utils classes, with no constructors and static methods. Otherwise, take a look at the Singleton design pattern, which is used to create a global access point for an object of class and ensures there's only one object of that class in the whole system. Hope this helps.
There are many questions and answers on how to implement a global variable in Android/Java.
So it seems one can either implement a singleton or use a data class itself with static variables.
I am about to start a larger project and would like to start on the right foot.
I am just not sure which one to use.
Pro singleton/con Data Class
supposedly "cleaner" way (but I really don't know why)
ensures that there is really always just one representation
creates a new instance should the old one be "cleaned away" (whenever this may happen?)
Con singleton/pro Data Class
not recommendet by some (but did not find convincng reasons)
ensures that there is only one representation by design
very easy to access just by writing MyDataClass.x (vs accessing singleton requires getting access to it first somehow)
no need to pass it as a parameter
So in summary I tend to use DataClass but I am unsure because I read that this is supposedly not good programming style.
I like to add
the data this global object has to hold is quite big, more than 30k strings/keys. And this should not be cleaned at any stage so that when the app return it may crash because of that - as I read in other places eg Singletons vs. Application Context in Android? (the 3rd answer)
it's not a web application, I use only one classloader
it is multithread but only one thread is actually accessing this data
one may certainly also use this approach How to declare global variables in Android?, but isn't an ObjectClass just easier to use and access in this case?
And checking this http://developer.android.com/resources/faq/framework.html, esp under "Persistent Objects", implies that there is no real advantage for on or the other in those cases anyway.
Many thanks
Best way to implement singleton is to use enum.
public enum Singleton
{
INSTANCE;
public void someMethod()
{
// your code here
}
}
For more details you can read Effective Java (2nd Edition)
First of all: There's not much difference between a class with public static member variables and a singleton class. A lot of developers prefer the singleton pattern because the code looks more natural and more Java. E.g. Singleton.Data looks like a constant access and Singleton.getData() looks like you're accessing some kind of static data.
Personally I use the static Application pattern: See Accessing resources without an Activity or Context reference
You can use onCreate to setup any kind of static data or even other singletons. E.g. I prefer to setup a singleton SQLite database like that and access it then via App.getDb(). You can use this pattern to access the application context or resources.
While using static data you should think about memory leeks. I would recommend to take a look at this article then.
I need to use getString() from most of the modules in my application.
But for some strange reason, it is tied to Application or Context, so that means I need to pass to each and every class in my application, the Application reference as a parameter.
This clearly violates one of the most basic principles of object oriented design.
Is there a way around this?
The 'strange reason' is that since the string resources are tied to your application, there is no way to access them without some sort of handle to it (the Context). If most of your classes that are not activities need to access string resources, you might want to rethink your design a bit. A simple way to not depend on a Context is to load the strings and pass them to your classes in the constructor.
Yes, there is a workaround - if you happen to (or can) pass a View (any View-derived class) to the constructor, and you assign it to a data member, then you can access the string resources from anywhere in your class:
String str_via_res = yourView.getContext().getString(R.string.str_via_res);
Otherwise, you will have to pass a Context to every class that needs access to these string resources.
you can extend android.app.Application class to create a static method to pass on the context across all classes in your application.
Refer : PhoneApp.java