How to pass an object from one activity to another

Question

I am trying to work on sending an object of my customer class from one Activity and display it in another Activity.

The code for the customer class:

public class Customer {

    private String firstName, lastName, Address;
    int Age;

    public Customer(String fname, String lname, int age, String address) {

        firstName = fname;
        lastName = lname;
        Age = age;
        Address = address;
    }

    public String printValues() {

        String data = null;

        data = "First Name :" + firstName + " Last Name :" + lastName
        + " Age : " + Age + " Address : " + Address;

        return data;
    }
}

I want to send its object from one Activity to another and then display the data on the other Activity.

How can I achieve that?

Answer 1

Android Activity objects can be destroyed and reconstituted. So, you will need to use another approach to look them - or any object they create!!! - up. That is, you could pass as static class reference but then the object handle (Java calls these "references", as does SmallTalk; but they are not references in the sense of C or assembly) will be possibly invalid later because a "feature" of Android OE is any Activity can be annihilated and reconstituted later.

The original question asked "How to pass object from one activity to another in Android" and nobody has answered that. For sure, you can serialized (Serializable, Parcelable, to/from JSON) and pass a copy of the object's data and a new object having the same data could be created; but it will NOT have the same references/handles. Also, many others mentioned you can store the reference in a static store. And that will work unless Android decides to onDestroy your Activity.

So, to really solve the original question you would need a static lookup plus each object will update its reference when/if it is recreated. E.g. each Android Activity would relist itself if its onCreate is called. You can also see how some people use the task list to search out an Activity by name. (system is temporarily destroying this instance of the activity to save space..getRunningTasks, the task list is effectively a specialized listing of the most recent object instance of each Activity).

For reference:

Stopped: "The activity is completely obscured by another activity (the activity is now in the "background"). A stopped activity is also still alive (the Activity object is retained in memory, it maintains all state and member information, but is not attached to the window manager). However, it is no longer visible to the user and it can be killed by the system when memory is needed elsewhere."

onDestroy "system is temporarily destroying this instance of the activity to save space."

So, the Message Bus is a workable solution. It basically "punts". Rather than try to have references to objects; then you re-architect your design to use MessagePassing instead of SequentialCode. Exponentially harder to debug; but it lets you ignore these sort of OperatingEnvironment understandings. Effectively, each object method access is inverted so the caller posts a Message and the object itself defines a handler for that message. Lots more code but can make it robust with the Android OE restrictions.

If all you want is the top Activity (typical thing in Android apps due to "Context" being needed everywhere), then you can just have each Activity lists itself as "top" in the static global space whenever its onResume is called. Then your AlertDialog or whatever which needs a context can just grab it from there. Also, its a bit yucky to use a global but can simplifying passing a Context up and down everywhere and, for sure, when you use a MessageBus then IT IS global anyways.

Answer 2

public class MyClass implements Serializable{
    Here is your instance variable
}

Now you want to pass the object of this class in startActivity. Simply use this:

Bundle b = new Bundle();
b.putSerializable("name", myClassObject);
intent.putExtras(b);

This works here because MyClass implements Serializable.

Answer 3

Above answers almost all correct but for those who doesn't undestand those answers Android has powerfull class Intent with help of it you share data between not only activity but another components of Android (broadcasr receiver, servises for content provide we use ContetnResolver class no Intent). In your activity you build intent

Intent intent = new Intent(context,SomeActivity.class);
intent.putExtra("key",value);
startActivity(intent);

In your receving activity you have

public class SomeActivity extends AppCompactActivity {

    public void onCreate(...){
    ...
          SomeObject someObject = getIntent().getExtras().getParceable("key");
    }

}

You have to implement Parceable or Serializable interface on your object in order to share between activities. It is hard to implement Parcealbe rather than Serializable interface on object that's why android has plugin especially for this.Download it and use it

Answer 4

I am using parcelable to send data from one activity to another acivity. Here is my code that works fine in my project.

public class Channel implements Serializable, Parcelable {

    /**  */
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 4861597073026532544L;

    private String cid;
    private String uniqueID;
    private String name;
    private String logo;
    private String thumb;


    /**
     * @return The cid
     */
    public String getCid() {
        return cid;
    }

    /**
     * @param cid
     *     The cid to set
     */
    public void setCid(String cid) {
        this.cid = cid;
    }

    /**
     * @return The uniqueID
     */
    public String getUniqueID() {
        return uniqueID;
    }

    /**
     * @param uniqueID
     *     The uniqueID to set
     */
    public void setUniqueID(String uniqueID) {
        this.uniqueID = uniqueID;
    }

    /**
     * @return The name
     */
    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }

    /**
     * @param name
     *            The name to set
     */
    public void setName(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }

    /**
     * @return the logo
     */
    public String getLogo() {
        return logo;
    }

    /**
     * @param logo
     *     The logo to set
     */
    public void setLogo(String logo) {
        this.logo = logo;
    }

    /**
     * @return the thumb
     */
    public String getThumb() {
        return thumb;
    }

    /**
     * @param thumb
     *     The thumb to set
     */
    public void setThumb(String thumb) {
        this.thumb = thumb;
    }


    public Channel(Parcel in) {
        super();
        readFromParcel(in);
    }

    public static final Parcelable.Creator<Channel> CREATOR = new Parcelable.Creator<Channel>() {
        public Channel createFromParcel(Parcel in) {
            return new Channel(in);
        }

        public Channel[] newArray(int size) {

            return new Channel[size];
        }
    };

    public void readFromParcel(Parcel in) {
        String[] result = new String[5];
        in.readStringArray(result);

        this.cid = result[0];
        this.uniqueID = result[1];
        this.name = result[2];
        this.logo = result[3];
        this.thumb = result[4];
    }

    public int describeContents() {
        return 0;
    }

    public void writeToParcel(Parcel dest, int flags) {

        dest.writeStringArray(new String[] { this.cid, this.uniqueID,
                this.name, this.logo, this.thumb});
    }
}

In activityA use it like this:

Bundle bundle = new Bundle();
bundle.putParcelableArrayList("channel",(ArrayList<Channel>) channels);
Intent intent = new Intent(ActivityA.this,ActivityB.class);
intent.putExtras(bundle);
startActivity(intent);

In ActivityB use it like this to get data:

Bundle getBundle = this.getIntent().getExtras();
List<Channel> channelsList = getBundle.getParcelableArrayList("channel");

Answer 5

• Using global static variables is not good software engineering practice.
• Converting an object's fields into primitive data types can be a hectic job.
• Using serializable is OK, but it's not performance-efficient on the Android platform.
• Parcelable is specifically designed for Android and you should use it. Here is a simple example: Passing custom objects between Android activities

You can generate Parcelable code for you class using this site.

Answer 6

You could also write the object's data into temporary Strings and ints, and pass them to the activity. Of course that way, you get the data transported, but not the object itself.

But if you just want to display them, and not use the object in another method or something like that, it should be enough. I did it the same way to just display data from one object in another activity.

String fName_temp   = yourObject.getFname();
String lName_temp   = yourObject.getLname();
String age_temp     = yourObject.getAge();
String address_temp = yourObject.getAddress();

Intent i = new Intent(this, ToClass.class);
i.putExtra("fname", fName_temp);
i.putExtra("lname", lName_temp);
i.putExtra("age", age_temp);
i.putExtra("address", address_temp);

startActivity(i);

You could also pass them in directly instead of the temp ivars, but this way it's clearer, in my opinion. Additionally, you can set the temp ivars to null so that they get cleaned by the GarbageCollector sooner.

Good luck!

On a side note: override toString() instead of writing your own print method.

As mentioned in the comments below, this is how you get your data back in another activity:

String fName = getIntent().getExtras().getInt("fname");