Why to extend an Application class?

Question

Why to extend an Application class?

What is in it for me?

Why would you do that?

I read that it can be used to declare global variables, is that all or are there any other applications?

Answer 1

To add onto the other answers that state that you might wish store variables in the application scope, for any long-running threads or other objects that need binding to your application where you are NOT using an activity (application is not an activity).. such as not being able to request a binded service.. then binding to the application instance is preferred. The only obvious warning with this approach is that the objects live for as long as the application is alive, so more implicit control over memory is required else you'll encounter memory-related problems like leaks.

Something else you may find useful is that in the order of operations, the application starts first before any activities. In this timeframe, you can prepare any necessary housekeeping that would occur before your first activity if you so desired.

2018-10-19 11:31:55.246 8643-8643/: application created
2018-10-19 11:31:55.630 8643-8643/: activity created

Answer 2

You can access variables to any class without creating objects, if its extended by Application. They can be called globally and their state is maintained till application is not killed.

Answer 3

I think you can use the Application class for many things, but they are all tied to your need to do some stuff BEFORE any of your Activities or Services are started. For instance, in my application I use custom fonts. Instead of calling

Typeface.createFromAsset()

from every Activity to get references for my fonts from the Assets folder (this is bad because it will result in memory leak as you are keeping a reference to assets every time you call that method), I do this from the onCreate() method in my Application class:

private App appInstance;
Typeface quickSandRegular;
...
public void onCreate() {
    super.onCreate();

    appInstance = this;
    quicksandRegular = Typeface.createFromAsset(getApplicationContext().getAssets(),
                       "fonts/Quicksand-Regular.otf");
   ...
   }

Now, I also have a method defined like this:

public static App getAppInstance() {
    return appInstance;
}

and this:

public Typeface getQuickSandRegular() {
    return quicksandRegular;
}

So, from anywhere in my application, all I have to do is:

App.getAppInstance().getQuickSandRegular()

Another use for the Application class for me is to check if the device is connected to the Internet BEFORE activities and services that require a connection actually start and take necessary action.

Answer 4

The use of extending application just make your application sure for any kind of operation that you want throughout your application running period. Now it may be any kind of variables and suppose if you want to fetch some data from server then you can put your asynctask in application so it will fetch each time and continuously, so that you will get a updated data automatically.. Use this link for more knowledge....

http://www.intridea.com/blog/2011/5/24/how-to-use-application-object-of-android

Answer 5

Application class is the object that has the full lifecycle of your application. It is your highest layer as an application. example possible usages:

• You can add what you need when the application is started by overriding onCreate in the Application class.

• store global variables that jump from Activity to Activity. Like Asynctask.

  etc

Answer 6

Sometimes you want to store data, like global variables which need to be accessed from multiple Activities - sometimes everywhere within the application. In this case, the Application object will help you.

For example, if you want to get the basic authentication data for each http request, you can implement the methods for authentication data in the application object.

After this,you can get the username and password in any of the activities like this:

MyApplication mApplication = (MyApplication)getApplicationContext();
String username = mApplication.getUsername();
String password = mApplication.getPassword();

And finally, do remember to use the Application object as a singleton object:

 public class MyApplication extends Application {
    private static MyApplication xxx;

    public MyApplication getInstance(){
        return singleton;
    }
    @Override
    public void onCreate() {
        super.onCreate();
        singleton = this;
    }
}

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