Android - Thread, Handler and AsyncTask
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Thread allows running code on a background thread but cannot directly update the UI. Handler allows scheduling messages and runnables to execute on a thread's message queue. AsyncTask simplifies background threading by running background work on a separate thread and publishing results on the UI thread.
Android - Thread, Handler and AsyncTask
- 1. Android Thread, Handler and AsyncTask Hoang Ngo
- 2. Thread • Act much like usual Java Threads • Can’t act directly on external User Interface objects (throw the Exception CalledFromWrongThreadException: Only the original thread that created a view hierarchy can touch its views”) • Can’t be stopped by executing destroy() nor stop(). Use instead interrupt() or join() (by case)
- 3. Thread • Two main ways of having a Thread execute application code: – Providing a new class that extends Thread and overriding its run() method. – Providing a new Thread instance with a Runnable object during its creation. In both cases, the start() method must be called to actually execute the new Thread.
- 5. Handler • Associated with a single thread and that thread's message queue • Bound to the thread / message queue of the thread that is creating it • Deliver messages and runnables to that message queue • Execute them as they come out of the message queue
- 6. Handler • Two main uses for a Handler: – To schedule messages and runnables to be executed as some point in the future – To add an action into a queue performed on a different thread
- 8. AsyncTask • Created on the UI thread and can be executed only once • Run on a background thread and result is published on the UI thread • The three types used by an asynchronous task are the following – Params, the type of the parameters sent to the task upon execution – Progress, the type of the progress units published during the background computation – Result, the type of the result of the background computation • Extend AsyncTask<Void, Void, Void>
- 9. AsyncTask • Go through 4 steps: – onPreExecute(): invoked on the UI thread immediately after the task is executed – doInBackground(Param ...): invoked on the background thread immediately after onPreExecute() finishes executing – onProgressUpdate(Progress...): invoked on the UI thread after a call to publishProgress(Progress...) – onPostExecute(Result): invoked on the UI thread after the background computation finishes
- 11. • Violate the single thread model: the Android UI toolkit is not thread-safe and must always be manipulated on the UI thread. • In this piece of code, the ImageView is manipulated on a worker thread, which can cause really weird problems. Tracking down and fixing such bugs can be difficult and time-consuming
- 12. • Classes and methods also tend to make the code more complicated and more difficult to read. • It becomes even worse when our implement complex operations that require frequent UI updates