How can I run code on a background thread on Android

Question

I want some code to run in the background continuously  I don t want to do it in a service  Is there any other way possible    I have tried calling the Thread class in my Activity but my Activity remains in the background for sometime and then it stops  The Thread class also stops working   class testThread implements Runnable            Override         public void run                 File file   new File  Environment getExternalStorageDirectory      BPCLTracker gpsdata txt                 int i   0               RandomAccessFile in   null               try                   in   new RandomAccessFile  file   rw                   catch  FileNotFoundException e       TODO Auto-generated catch block                 e printStackTrace                  catch  IOException e       TODO Auto-generated catch block                 e printStackTrace                    String line  null              while   true                     HttpEntity entity   null                  try                       if   isInternetOn                               while     line   in readLine        null                                  HttpClient client   new DefaultHttpClient                                String url    some url                               HttpPost request   new HttpPost  url                                StringEntity se   new StringEntity  line                                se setContentEncoding   UTF-8                                 se setContentEncoding  new BasicHeader  HTTP CONTENT TYPE   application json                                   entity   se                              request setEntity  entity                                HttpResponse response   client execute  request                                entity   response getEntity                                i                                                      if     line   in readLine        null  amp  amp  entity    null                                 file delete                                testThread t   new testThread                                Thread t1   new Thread  t                                t1 start                                                      else                           Thread sleep  60000                             end of else                    catch  NullPointerException e1                        e1 printStackTrace                      catch  InterruptedException e2                        e2 printStackTrace                      catch  IOException e1       TODO Auto-generated catch block                     e1 printStackTrace                                      end of while             end of run

User · Answer

Today I was looking for this and Mr Brandon Rude gave an excellent answer. Unfortunately, AsyncTask is now depricated, you can still use it, but it gives you a warning which is very annoying. So an alternative is to use Executors like this way (in kotlin):


    val someRunnable = object : Runnable{
      override fun run() {
        // todo: do your background tasks
        requireActivity().runOnUiThread{
          // update views / ui if you are in a fragment
        };
        /*
        runOnUiThread {
          // update ui if you are in an activity
        }
        * */
      }
    };
    Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor().execute(someRunnable);

And in java it looks like this:


        Runnable someRunnable = new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                // todo: background tasks
                runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {
                    @Override
                    public void run() {
                        // todo: update your ui / view in activity
                    }
                });

                /*
                requireActivity().runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {
                    @Override
                    public void run() {
                        // todo: update your ui / view in Fragment
                    }
                });*/
            }
        };

        Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor().execute(someRunnable);

User · Answer

An Alternative to AsyncTask is robospice  https   github com octo-online robospice   Some of the features of robospice   1 executes asynchronously  in a background AndroidService  network requests  ex  REST requests using Spring Android  notify you app  on the UI thread  when result is ready   2 is strongly typed   You make your requests using POJOs and you get POJOs as request results   3 enforce no constraints neither on POJOs used for requests nor on Activity classes you use in your projects   4 caches results  in Json with both Jackson and Gson  or Xml  or flat text files  or binary files  even using ORM Lite    5 notifies your activities  or any other context  of the result of the network request if and only if they are still alive  6 no memory leak at all  like Android Loaders  unlike Android AsyncTasks notifies your activities on their UI Thread   7 uses a simple but robust exception handling model   Samples to start with  https   github com octo-online RoboSpice-samples   A sample of robospice at https   play google com store apps details id com octo android robospice motivations amp feature search result

User · Answer

Simple 3-Liner  A simple way of doing this that I found as a comment by  awardak in Brandon Rude s answer    new Thread  new Runnable      Override public void run           Run whatever background code you want here        start      I m not sure if  or how   this is better than using AsyncTask execute but it seems to work for us  Any comments as to the difference would be appreciated   Thanks   awardak

User · Answer

IF you need to     execute code on a background Thread execute code that DOES NOT touch update the UI execute  short  code which will take at most a few seconds to complete    THEN use the following clean and efficient pattern which uses AsyncTask   AsyncTask execute new Runnable         Override    public void run             TODO your background code

User · Answer

I want some code to run in the background continuously  I don t want   to do it in a service  Is there any other way possible    Most likely mechanizm that you are looking for is AsyncTask  It directly designated for performing background process on background Thread  Also its main benefit is that offers a few methods which run on Main UI  Thread and make possible to update your UI if you want to annouce user about some progress in task or update UI with data retrieved from background process   If you don t know how to start here is nice tutorial    Understanding AsyncTask     Once and Forever   Note  Also there is possibility to use IntentService with ResultReceiver that works as well

User · Answer

Remember Running Background  Running continuously are two different tasks   For long-term background processes  Threads aren t optimal with Android  However  here s the code and do it at your own risk      Remember Service or Thread will run in the background but our task needs to make trigger  call again and again  to get updates  i e  once the task is completed we need to recall the function for next update   Timer  periodic trigger   Alarm  Timebase trigger   Broadcast  Event base Trigger   recursion will awake our functions   public static boolean isRecursionEnable   true   void runInBackground         if   isRecursionEnable             Handle not to start multiple parallel threads         return          isRecursionEnable   false  when u want to stop        on exception on thread make it true again       new Thread new Runnable              Override         public void run                    DO your work here                get the data             if  activity is not in background                    runOnUiThread new Runnable                          Override                     public void run                                update UI                         runInBackground                                                            else                   runInBackground                                   start        Using Service  If you launch a Service it will start  It will execute the task  and it will terminate itself  after the task execution  terminated might also be caused by exception  or user killed it manually from settings  START STICKY  Sticky Service  is the option given by android that service will restart itself if service terminated   Remember the question difference between multiprocessing and multithreading  Service is a background process  Just like activity without UI   The same way how you launch thread in the activity to avoid load on the main thread  Activity thread   the same way you need to launch threads or async tasks  on service to avoid load on service   In a single statement  if you want a run a background continues task  you need to launch a StickyService and run the thread in the service on event base

User · Answer

If you need run thread predioticly with different codes here is example   Listener   public interface ESLThreadListener        public List onBackground         public void onPostExecute List list        Thread Class  public class ESLThread extends AsyncTask lt Void  Void  List gt          private ESLThreadListener mListener       public ESLThread              if mListener    null                mListener onBackground                          Override     protected List doInBackground Void    params             if mListener    null                List list   mListener onBackground                 return list                     return null              Override     protected void onPostExecute List t            if mListener    null                if   t    null                    mListener onPostExecute t                                        public void setListener ESLThreadListener mListener            this mListener   mListener            Run different codes     ESLThread thread   new ESLThread                            thread setListener new ESLThreadListener                                  Override                             public List onBackground                                     List lt EntityShoppingListItems gt   data   RoomDB getDatabase context  sliDAO   getSL fId                                    return data                                                               Override                             public void onPostExecute List t                                     List lt EntityShoppingListItems gt  data    List lt EntityShoppingListItems gt  t                                  adapter setList data                                                                                      thread execute

User · Answer

class Background implements Runnable       private CountDownLatch latch   new CountDownLatch 1       private  Handler handler       Background             Thread thread   new Thread this           thread start            try               latch await              catch  InterruptedException e                   e printStackTrace                          Override     public void run             Looper prepare            handler   new Handler            latch countDown            Looper loop               public Handler getHandler             return handler

[android] How can I run code on a background thread on Android?

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