How to save an activity state using save instance

Question

I've been working on the Android SDK platform, and it is a little unclear how to save an application's state. So given this minor re-tooling of the 'Hello, Android' example:

package com.android.hello;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class HelloAndroid extends Activity {

  private TextView mTextView = null;

  /** Called when the activity is first created. */
  @Override
  public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

    mTextView = new TextView(this);

    if (savedInstanceState == null) {
       mTextView.setText("Welcome to HelloAndroid!");
    } else {
       mTextView.setText("Welcome back.");
    }

    setContentView(mTextView);
  }
}

I thought it would be enough for the simplest case, but it always responds with the first message, no matter how I navigate away from the app.

I'm sure the solution is as simple as overriding onPause or something like that, but I've been poking away in the documentation for 30 minutes or so and haven't found anything obvious.

Answer 1

Here is a comment from Steve Moseley's answer (by ToolmakerSteve) that puts things into perspective (in the whole onSaveInstanceState vs onPause, east cost vs west cost saga)

@VVK - I partially disagree. Some ways of exiting an app don't trigger onSaveInstanceState (oSIS). This limits the usefulness of oSIS. Its worth supporting, for minimal OS resources, but if an app wants to return the user to the state they were in, no matter how the app was exited, it is necessary to use a persistent storage approach instead. I use onCreate to check for bundle, and if it is missing, then check persistent storage. This centralizes the decision making. I can recover from a crash, or back button exit or custom menu item Exit, or get back to screen user was on many days later. – ToolmakerSteve Sep 19 '15 at 10:38

Answer 2

Note that it is NOT safe to use onSaveInstanceState and onRestoreInstanceState for persistent data, according to the documentation on Activity states in http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Activity.html.

The document states (in the 'Activity Lifecycle' section):

Note that it is important to save persistent data in onPause() instead of onSaveInstanceState(Bundle) because the later is not part of the lifecycle callbacks, so will not be called in every situation as described in its documentation.

In other words, put your save/restore code for persistent data in onPause() and onResume()!

EDIT: For further clarification, here's the onSaveInstanceState() documentation:

This method is called before an activity may be killed so that when it comes back some time in the future it can restore its state. For example, if activity B is launched in front of activity A, and at some point activity A is killed to reclaim resources, activity A will have a chance to save the current state of its user interface via this method so that when the user returns to activity A, the state of the user interface can be restored via onCreate(Bundle) or onRestoreInstanceState(Bundle).

Answer 3

Saving state is a kludge at best as far as I'm concerned. If you need to save persistent data, just use an SQLite database. Android makes it SOOO easy.

Something like this:

import java.util.Date;
import android.content.Context;
import android.database.Cursor;
import android.database.sqlite.SQLiteDatabase;
import android.database.sqlite.SQLiteOpenHelper;

public class dataHelper {

    private static final String DATABASE_NAME = "autoMate.db";
    private static final int DATABASE_VERSION = 1;

    private Context context;
    private SQLiteDatabase db;
    private OpenHelper oh ;

    public dataHelper(Context context) {
        this.context = context;
        this.oh = new OpenHelper(this.context);
        this.db = oh.getWritableDatabase();
    }

    public void close() {
        db.close();
        oh.close();
        db = null;
        oh = null;
        SQLiteDatabase.releaseMemory();
    }


    public void setCode(String codeName, Object codeValue, String codeDataType) {
        Cursor codeRow = db.rawQuery("SELECT * FROM code WHERE codeName = '"+  codeName + "'", null);
        String cv = "" ;

        if (codeDataType.toLowerCase().trim().equals("long") == true){
            cv = String.valueOf(codeValue);
        }
        else if (codeDataType.toLowerCase().trim().equals("int") == true)
        {
            cv = String.valueOf(codeValue);
        }
        else if (codeDataType.toLowerCase().trim().equals("date") == true)
        {
            cv = String.valueOf(((Date)codeValue).getTime());
        }
        else if (codeDataType.toLowerCase().trim().equals("boolean") == true)
        {
            String.valueOf(codeValue);
        }
        else
        {
            cv = String.valueOf(codeValue);
        }

        if(codeRow.getCount() > 0) //exists-- update
        {
            db.execSQL("update code set codeValue = '" + cv +
                "' where codeName = '" + codeName + "'");
        }
        else // does not exist, insert
        {
            db.execSQL("INSERT INTO code (codeName, codeValue, codeDataType) VALUES(" +
                    "'" + codeName + "'," +
                    "'" + cv + "'," +
                    "'" + codeDataType + "')" );
        }
    }

    public Object getCode(String codeName, Object defaultValue){

        //Check to see if it already exists
        String codeValue = "";
        String codeDataType = "";
        boolean found = false;
        Cursor codeRow  = db.rawQuery("SELECT * FROM code WHERE codeName = '"+  codeName + "'", null);
        if (codeRow.moveToFirst())
        {
            codeValue = codeRow.getString(codeRow.getColumnIndex("codeValue"));
            codeDataType = codeRow.getString(codeRow.getColumnIndex("codeDataType"));
            found = true;
        }

        if (found == false)
        {
            return defaultValue;
        }
        else if (codeDataType.toLowerCase().trim().equals("long") == true)
        {
            if (codeValue.equals("") == true)
            {
                return (long)0;
            }
            return Long.parseLong(codeValue);
        }
        else if (codeDataType.toLowerCase().trim().equals("int") == true)
        {
            if (codeValue.equals("") == true)
            {
                return (int)0;
            }
            return Integer.parseInt(codeValue);
        }
        else if (codeDataType.toLowerCase().trim().equals("date") == true)
        {
            if (codeValue.equals("") == true)
            {
                return null;
            }
            return new Date(Long.parseLong(codeValue));
        }
        else if (codeDataType.toLowerCase().trim().equals("boolean") == true)
        {
            if (codeValue.equals("") == true)
            {
                return false;
            }
            return Boolean.parseBoolean(codeValue);
        }
        else
        {
            return (String)codeValue;
        }
    }


    private static class OpenHelper extends SQLiteOpenHelper {

        OpenHelper(Context context) {
            super(context, DATABASE_NAME, null, DATABASE_VERSION);
        }

        @Override
        public void onCreate(SQLiteDatabase db) {
            db.execSQL("CREATE TABLE IF  NOT EXISTS code" +
            "(id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, codeName TEXT, codeValue TEXT, codeDataType TEXT)");
        }

        @Override
        public void onUpgrade(SQLiteDatabase db, int oldVersion, int newVersion) {
        }
    }
}

A simple call after that

dataHelper dh = new dataHelper(getBaseContext());
String status = (String) dh.getCode("appState", "safetyDisabled");
Date serviceStart = (Date) dh.getCode("serviceStartTime", null);
dh.close();
dh = null;

Answer 4

I think I found the answer. Let me tell what I have done in simple words:

Suppose I have two activities, activity1 and activity2 and I am navigating from activity1 to activity2 (I have done some works in activity2) and again back to activity 1 by clicking on a button in activity1. Now at this stage I wanted to go back to activity2 and I want to see my activity2 in the same condition when I last left activity2.

For the above scenario what I have done is that in the manifest I made some changes like this:

<activity android:name=".activity2"
          android:alwaysRetainTaskState="true"      
          android:launchMode="singleInstance">
</activity>

And in the activity1 on the button click event I have done like this:

Intent intent = new Intent();
intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_REORDER_TO_FRONT);
intent.setClassName(this,"com.mainscreen.activity2");
startActivity(intent);

And in activity2 on button click event I have done like this:

Intent intent=new Intent();
intent.setClassName(this,"com.mainscreen.activity1");
startActivity(intent);

Now what will happen is that whatever the changes we have made in the activity2 will not be lost, and we can view activity2 in the same state as we left previously.

I believe this is the answer and this works fine for me. Correct me if I am wrong.

Answer 5

The onSaveInstanceState(bundle) and onRestoreInstanceState(bundle) methods are useful for data persistence merely while rotating the screen (orientation change).
They are not even good while switching between applications (since the onSaveInstanceState() method is called but onCreate(bundle) and onRestoreInstanceState(bundle) is not invoked again.
For more persistence use shared preferences. read this article

Answer 6

My problem was that I needed persistence only during the application lifetime (i.e. a single execution including starting other sub-activities within the same app and rotating the device etc). I tried various combinations of the above answers but did not get what I wanted in all situations. In the end what worked for me was to obtain a reference to the savedInstanceState during onCreate:

mySavedInstanceState=savedInstanceState;

and use that to obtain the contents of my variable when I needed it, along the lines of:

if (mySavedInstanceState !=null) {
   boolean myVariable = mySavedInstanceState.getBoolean("MyVariable");
}

I use onSaveInstanceStateand onRestoreInstanceState as suggested above but I guess i could also or alternatively use my method to save the variable when it changes (e.g. using putBoolean)