Timer inside Android service

Question

I have an Android service that starts a timer that does stuff:

@Override
public int onStartCommand(Intent intent, int flags, int startId) {
    timer.scheduleAtFixedRate(new VeryImportantTask(), 0, RATE);
    return START_STICKY;
}

I know Services are singleton but, does onStartCommand method called each time that I call startService()? If so, I should control that my timer is just started the first time, shouldn't I? I'm thinking in a static boolean flag in the service. Is there a better way?

Answer 1

In your case i.e START_STICKY you can simply check the intent value nullity like this

@Override
public int onStartCommand(Intent intent, int flags, int startId) {
      if(null==intent){
              // service restarted do what you want
        }
    return START_STICKY;
}

because first time the intent will not be null and it will be null every time in case of a restart with START_STICKY.