[java] How do I get the SharedPreferences from a PreferenceActivity in Android?

I am using a PreferenceActivity to show some settings for my application. I am inflating the settings via a xml file so that my onCreate (and complete class methods) looks like this:

public class FooActivity extends PreferenceActivity {
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle icicle) {
        super.onCreate(icicle);
        addPreferencesFromResource(R.xml.preference);
    }
}

The javadoc of PreferenceActivity PreferenceFragment states that

These preferences will automatically save to SharedPreferences as the user interacts with them. To retrieve an instance of SharedPreferences that the preference hierarchy in this activity will use, call getDefaultSharedPreferences(android.content.Context) with a context in the same package as this activity.

But how I get the name of the SharedPreference in another Activity? I can only call

getSharedPreferences(name, mode)

in the other activity but I need the name of the SharedPreference which was used by the PreferenceActivity. What is the name or how can i retrieve it?

If you don't have access to getDefaultSharedPreferenes(), you can use getSharedPreferences(name, mode) instead, you just have to pass in the right name.

Android creates this name (possibly based on the package name of your project?). You can get it by putting the following code in a SettingsActivity onCreate(), and seeing what preferencesName is.

String preferencesName = this.getPreferenceManager().getSharedPreferencesName();

The string should be something like com.example.projectname_preferences. Hard code that somewhere in your project, and pass it in to getSharedPreferences() and you should be good to go.

Declare these methods first..

public static void putPref(String key, String value, Context context) {
    SharedPreferences prefs = PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(context);
    SharedPreferences.Editor editor = prefs.edit();
    editor.putString(key, value);
    editor.commit();
}

public static String getPref(String key, Context context) {
    SharedPreferences preferences = PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(context);
    return preferences.getString(key, null);
}

Then call this when you want to put a pref:

putPref("myKey", "mystring", getApplicationContext());

call this when you want to get a pref:

getPref("myKey", getApplicationContext());

Or you can use this object https://github.com/kcochibili/TinyDB--Android-Shared-Preferences-Turbo which simplifies everything even further

Example:

TinyDB tinydb = new TinyDB(context);

tinydb.putInt("clickCount", 2);
tinydb.putFloat("xPoint", 3.6f);
tinydb.putLong("userCount", 39832L);

tinydb.putString("userName", "john");
tinydb.putBoolean("isUserMale", true); 

tinydb.putList("MyUsers", mUsersArray);
tinydb.putImagePNG("DropBox/WorkImages", "MeAtlunch.png", lunchBitmap);

having to pass context around everywhere is really annoying me. the code becomes too verbose and unmanageable. I do this in every project instead...

public class global {
    public static Activity globalContext = null;

and set it in the main activity create

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    Thread.setDefaultUncaughtExceptionHandler(new CustomExceptionHandler(
            global.sdcardPath,
            ""));
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

    //Start 
    //Debug.startMethodTracing("appname.Trace1");

    global.globalContext = this;

also all preference keys should be language independent, I'm shocked nobody has mentioned that.

getText(R.string.yourPrefKeyName).toString()

now call it very simply like this in one line of code

global.globalContext.getSharedPreferences(global.APPNAME_PREF, global.MODE_PRIVATE).getBoolean("isMetric", true);

if you have a checkbox and you would like to fetch it's value ie true / false in any java file--

Use--

Context mContext;
boolean checkFlag;

checkFlag=PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(mContext).getBoolean(KEY,DEFAULT_VALUE);`

Try following source code it worked for me

//Fetching id from shared preferences
    SharedPreferences sharedPreferences;
    sharedPreferences =getSharedPreferences(Constant.SHARED_PREF_NAME, Context.MODE_PRIVATE);
    getUserLogin = sharedPreferences.getString(Constant.ID_SHARED_PREF, "");