1 mobile software development framework: android inter- thread, process communications 10/11/2012 y....
TRANSCRIPT
1
Mobile Software Development Framework:
Android Inter-Thread, Process Communications
10/11/2012
Y. Richard Yang
2
Outline
Admin Android
Basic concepts• Activity, View, External Resources, Listener
Inter-thread communications• Handler, ASyncTask
Inter-process communications• Intent, Broadcast, BroadcastReceiver, Service
3
Admin.
HW2 Due: Friday @ 11:55 pm
Recap: Mobile GUI App Workflow
App
App lifecycle callbacks/custom-start-pause-…
DisplayComposite
Display
DisplayComposite
Display
Display
DisplayComposite
Display
Display
Data/Model
Data/Model
Event Handler
Event Handler
DisplayComposite
DisplayDisplayComposite
Display Display
5
Recap: Android UI App Basic Concepts
Activity
View/ViewGroup External definition of views in XML findViewById() to reduce coupling
Link view events to event handlers set…Listener()
Example: TipCalc
Set listener:
6
Example: TipCalc Event HandlerHandler:
7
Event Handler Execution
8
Event handler executed by the main/UI thread
UI events
systemevents
message
message
message
Looper UI (main) thread
http://www.java2s.com/Open-Source/Android/android-core/platform-frameworks-base/android/os/Looper.java.htm
Event Handler and Responsiveness
9
Event handler blocks events in the msg queue from being processed=>slow running handler leads to no UI response
http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/responsiveness.html
UI events
systemevents
message
message
message
Looper UI (main) thread
Responsiveness: Numbers (Nexus One) ~5-25 ms – uncached flash reading a byte ~5-200+(!) ms – uncached flash writing
tiny amount 100-200 ms – human perception of slow
action 108/350/500/800 ms – ping over 3G.
varies! ~1-6+ seconds – TCP setup + HTTP fetch
of 6k over 3G
10
Event Handler and ANR
11
Android system detects no response Main thread
(“event”/UI) does not respond to input in 5 sec
12
Example
play_music
13
Discussion
What are some design options if an event may take a while to be processed Time consuming loading process, e.g., slow
onCreate Heavy computation, e.g., voice recognition,
update map display Networking access …
14
Typical Design Guidelines
Notify user E.g., progress bar, progress dialog A splash screen
If possible, non-blocking, incremental update UI E.g., gradual add items to map
Whenever possible, release UI thread ASAP Keep event handler simple Post heavy processing off the UI thread
Example: Background Thread
Use a background thread to do the task Background thread behavior controlled by
state State controlled by event handler
See PlayMusic
15
Service: Working in Background A basic function of Android Service:
A facility for an application to tell the system about something it wants to be doing in the background (even when the user is not directly interacting with the application).
The system to schedule work for the service, to be run until the service or someone else explicitly stop it.
NO GUI, higher priority than inactive Activities Note
A Service is not a separate process. The Service object itself does not imply it is running in its own process; unless otherwise specified, it runs in the same process as the application it is part of.
A Service is not a thread. It is not a means itself to do work off of the main thread (to avoid Application Not Responding errors).
Background Thread vs UI Thread
Problem: Background thread and UI thread are running
concurrently and may have race conditions if they modify UI simultaneously (e.g., UI switches to a different orientation)
A major sin of programming: concurrency bugs
Example: LoadingScreen
17
Example: LoadingScreen
18
public class LoadingScreen extends Activity implements Runnable {
@Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.loading);
// start a new thread to load Thread thread = new Thread(this); thread.start(); }
public void run(){ longRunningTask(); setContentView(R.layout.main); }
…}
Solution
Background thread does not directly modify UI: send msg to UI thread, who processes the msg
19
Android Handler
Android’s mechanism to send and process Message and Runnable objects associated with a thread's MessageQueue.
Each Handler instance is associated with a single thread and that thread's message queue
A handler is bound to the thread / message queue of the thread that creates it
from that point on, it will deliver messages and runnables to that message queue
That thread processes msgs20
Android Handler
21
Using Handler: Examples
There are two main uses for a Handler
to schedule messages and runnables to be executed as some point in the future
• postDelayed(Runnable, delayMillis)
to enqueue an action to be performed on a different thread than your own.
• post(Runnable)
22
Handler
public class MyActivity extends Activity {
[ . . . ] // Need handler for callbacks to the UI thread final Handler mHandler = new Handler();
// Create runnable task to give to UI thread final Runnable mUpdateResultsTask = new Runnable() { public void run() { updateResultsInUi(); } };
@Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
[ . . . ] }
23
Handler
protected void startLongRunningOperation() {
// Fire off a thread to do some work that we shouldn't do directly in the UI thread Thread t = new Thread() { public void run() { mResults = doSomethingExpensive(); mHandler.post(mUpdateResultsTask); } }; t.start(); }
private void updateResultsInUi() {
// Back in the UI thread -- update our UI elements based on the data in mResults [ . . . ] }}
24
Example: Fixing LoadingScreen
25
Example: BackgroundTimer
26
Common Pattern
27
AsyncTask as Abstraction
28
private class DownloadFilesTask extends AsyncTask<URL, Integer, Long> { protected Long doInBackground(URL... urls) { // on some background thread int count = urls.length; long totalSize = 0; for (int i = 0; i < count; i++) { totalSize += Downloader.downloadFile(urls[i]); publishProgress((int) ((i / (float) count) * 100)); } return totalSize; } protected void onProgressUpdate(Integer... progress) { // on UI thread! setProgressPercent(progress[0]); } protected void onPostExecute(Long result) { // on UI thread! showDialog("Downloaded " + result + " bytes"); }}
new DownloadFilesTask().execute(url1, url2, url3); // call from UI thread!
See GoogleSearch
29
30
Outline
Admin Android
Basic concepts• Activity, View, External Resources, Listener
Inter-thread communications• Handler, ASyncTask
Inter-process communications• Intent, Broadcast, BroadcastReceiver, Service
31
Inter-Process Communications (IPC)
Inter-thread communications are for one activity
Inter-process communication is designed to promote the development of complex applications, by allowing developers to reuse existing data and services from other applications.
One may also use IPC for intra-app communications (e.g., between Activities of the same app)
Discussion: IPC Use Cases
One component of Android sends messages to another component of Android
An IPC message in Android is called Intent
32
Component Component
Target: Activity
startActivity() or startActivityForResult() to launch an activity or get an existing activity to do something new.
33
Component Activity
Target: Service
startService() to initiate a service or deliver new instructions to an ongoing service.
bindService() to establish a connection between the calling component and a target service. It can optionally initiate the service if it's not already running.
34
Component Service
Target: BroadcastReceiver
broadcastIntent()to send messages to all interested broadcast receivers. Many kinds of broadcasts originate in system code,
e.g., boot, battery low
35
Component BroadcastReceiver
Target: Data Provider
startActivityForResult()may target to a data provider (e.g., Contacts)
36
Component Data Provider
Example: A SocialApp
37
Android Application Component: Gang of Four
38
39
Outline
Admin Android
Basic concepts• Activity, View, External Resources, Listener
Inter-thread communications• Handler, ASyncTask
Inter-process communications• Intent
Application and Component Glues: Intent
Intent An intent is an abstract description of an
operation to be performed.• Indicate operations from your own or others
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/Intent.html
Component Component
Intent Data Structure Primary pieces of info in an Intent
Action: The general action to be performed• ACTION_VIEW, ACTION_DIAL, ACTION_EDIT, …• Your own definition of strings
Data: a URI• tel:123• content://contacts/people/1• http://zoo.cs.yale.edu/classes/cs434• hotel://name/Omni_New_Haven
Other attributes Category Type (MIME type) Component (class name) Extras (key-value store)
41
scheme
host path
Intent Resolution: Explicit Intent Explicit Intent: specifies the exact class to run
42
class name
Context
Explicit Intent and Manifest
43
Make sure AndroidManifest.xml announces activities to be started
<application android:icon="@drawable/icon” android:label="@string/app_name" > <activity android:name=".IntentController” android:label="IntentController" > <intent-filter> <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" /> <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" /> </intent-filter> </activity>
<activity android:name=".TipCal android:label="TipCal" > </activity>
Shown in Launcher
Announce class
See IntentController
Explicit Intent
44
YelpMapApp
Name: MapActivity
To: MapActivity
Only the specified destination receives this message
Intent Resolution: Implicit Intent
Intent does not specify exact class to run Info in the Intent used by the system to
determine the best component, at run time, to handle the intent
Matching based on Intent Filter Register Activities, Services, and Broadcast
Receivers register Intent Filter to indicate as being capable of performing an action on a particular kind of data
Q: benefit of dynamic binding?45http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/intents/intents-filters.html
Implicit Intents
46
Yelp
ClockApp
MapApp
Handles Action: VIEW
Handles Action: DISPLAYTIME
Implicit IntentAction: VIEW
Implicit Intents
47
Yelp
BrowserApp
MapApp
Handles Action: VIEW
Handles Action: VIEW
Implicit IntentAction: VIEW
Intent Filter
48
action
category
data
Intent Resolution: Implicit Intent
49
data
action
See IntentController
Implicit Intent and Manifest
AndroidManifest.xml file for com.android.browser
50
String action = "android.intent.action.VIEW";Uri data = Uri.parse("http://www.google.com");Intent myIntent = new Intent(action, data);startActivity(myIntent);
<intent-filter> <action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" /> <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" /> <scheme android:name="http" /> <scheme android:name="https" /> <scheme android:name="file" /></intent-filter>
A Design Template: Invoker
51
String action = “com.hotelapp.ACTION_BOOK";String hotel = “hotel://name/“ + selectedHotel;Uri data = Uri.parse(hotel);Intent bookingIntent = new Intent(action, data);startActivityForResults(bookingIntent, requestCode);
A Design Template: Provider
52
<activity android:name=".Booking" android:label=“Booking"> <intent-filter> <action android:name=“com.hotelapp.ACTION_BOOK" /> <data android:scheme=“hotel" android:host=“name”/> </intent-filter></activity>
A Design Template: Provider
53
@Overridepublic void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.main);
Intent intent = getIntent(); // why am I called String action = intent.getAction(); Uri data = intent.getdata();
String hotelName = data.getPath(); // do the booking
setResult(RESULT_OK); finish();}
Intent and Broadcast: Sender
String action = "edu.yale.cs434.RUN";
Intent cs434BroadcastIntent = new Intent(action);
cs434BroadcastIntent.putExtra("message", "Wake up.");
sendBroadcast(cs434BroadcastIntent);
54
Example: IntentLaunch
Intent and Broadcast: Receiver
<receiver android:name=".CS434BroadcastReceiver" android:enabled="true">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="edu.yale.cs434.RUN" />
</intent-filter>
</receiver>
55
Intent, Broadcast, Receiver, Notificationpublic class CS434BroadcastReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {
public static final String CUSTOM_INTENT = "edu.yale.cs434.RUN";
// Display an alert that we've received a message.
@Override
public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
if (intent.getAction().equals(CUSTOM_INTENT)) {
String message = (String)intent.getExtras().get("message");
CharSequence text = "Got intent " + CUSTOM_INTENT + " with " + message;
int duration = Toast.LENGTH_SHORT;
Toast mToast = Toast.makeText(context, text, duration);
mToast.show();
} // end of if
} // end of onReceive
}
56
Android: Content Provider
Each provider can expose its data as a simple table on a database model
Each content provider exposes a public URI that uniquely identifies its data set:
android.provider.Contacts.Phones.CONTENT_URI android.provider.Contacts.Photos.CONTENT_URI android.provider.CallLog.Calls.CONTENT_URI android.provider.Calendar.CONTENT_URI
57
Intent and Content Provider private void pickContact() {
// Create an intent to "pick" a contact, as defined by the content provider URI Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_PICK, Contacts.CONTENT_URI); startActivityForResult(intent, PICK_CONTACT_REQUEST);}
@Overrideprotected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) { // If the request went well (OK) and the request was PICK_CONTACT_REQUEST if (resultCode == Activity.RESULT_OK && requestCode == PICK_CONTACT_REQUEST) { // Perform a query to the contact's content provider for the contact's name Cursor cursor = getContentResolver().query(data.getData(), new String[] {Contacts.DISPLAY_NAME}, null, null, null); if (cursor.moveToFirst()) { // True if the cursor is not empty int columnIndex = cursor.getColumnIndex(Contacts.DISPLAY_NAME); String name = cursor.getString(columnIndex); // Do something with the selected contact's name... } }}
58