ANDROID TUTORIAL

Broadcast Receivers

JANUARY 25, 2016

TRIEU NGO HUY (DIRECK2B)
[email protected]

Contents
1.

What is Broadcast Receiver?................................................................................................................. 2

2.

Creating the Broadcast Receiver........................................................................................................... 2

3.

Registering Broadcast Receiver............................................................................................................. 3

4.

Broadcasting Custom Intents ................................................................................................................ 4

5.

Example ................................................................................................................................................. 5

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ANDROID TUTORIAL
BROADCAST RECEIVER
1. What is Broadcast Receiver?
Broadcast Receivers simply respond to broadcast messages from other applications or
from the system itself. These messages are sometime called events or intents. For example,
applications can also initiate broadcasts to let other applications know that some data has been
downloaded to the device and is available for them to use, so this is broadcast receiver who will
intercept this communication and will initiate appropriate action.
There are following two important steps to make BroadcastReceiver works for the system
broadcasted intents
o Creating the Broadcast Receiver.
o Registering Broadcast Receiver
There is one additional steps in case you are going to implement your custom intents then
you will have to create and broadcast those intents.

2. Creating the Broadcast Receiver

A broadcast receiver is implemented as a subclass of BroadcastReceiverclass and
overriding the onReceive() method where each message is received as a Intent object parameter.
public class MyReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {
@Override
public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
Toast.makeText(context, "Intent Detected.", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
}
}

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3. Registering Broadcast Receiver

An application listens for specific broadcast intents by registering a broadcast receiver
in AndroidManifest.xml file. Consider we are going to registerMyReceiver for system generated
event ACTION_BOOT_COMPLETED which is fired by the system once the Android system has
completed the boot process.

BROADCAST-RECEIVER
<application
android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
android:label="@string/app_name"
android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >
<receiver android:name="MyReceiver">

<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.BOOT_COMPLETED">
</action>
</intent-filter>

</receiver>
</application>

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 Now whenever your Android device gets booted, it will be intercepted by

BroadcastReceiver MyReceiver and implemented logic inside onReceive() will be executed.
There are several system generated events defined as final static fields in theIntent class.
The following table lists a few important system events.
Event Constant

Description

android.intent.action.BATTERY_CHANGED

Sticky broadcast containing the

charging state, level, and other
information about the battery.

android.intent.action.BATTERY_LOW

Indicates low battery condition on the

device.

android.intent.action.BATTERY_OKAY

Indicates the battery is now okay after

being low.

android.intent.action.BOOT_COMPLETED

This is broadcast once, after the

system has finished booting.

android.intent.action.BUG_REPORT

Show activity for reporting a bug.

android.intent.action.CALL

Perform a call to someone specified by

the data.

android.intent.action.CALL_BUTTON

The user pressed the "call" button to

go to the dialer or other appropriate UI
for placing a call.

android.intent.action.DATE_CHANGED

The date has changed.

android.intent.action.REBOOT

Have the device reboot.

4. Broadcasting Custom Intents

If you want your application itself should generate and send custom intents then you will
have to create and send those intents by using the sendBroadcast()method inside your activity
class. If you use the sendStickyBroadcast(Intent)method, the Intent is sticky, meaning
the Intent you are sending stays around after the broadcast is complete.
public void broadcastIntent(View view)

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{
Intent intent = new Intent();
intent.setAction("com.tutorialspoint.CUSTOM_INTENT");
sendBroadcast(intent);
}

This intent com.tutorialspoint.CUSTOM_INTENT can also be registered in similar way as

we have regsitered system generated intent.
<application
android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
android:label="@string/app_name"
android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >
<receiver android:name="MyReceiver">

<intent-filter>
<action android:name="com.tutorialspoint.CUSTOM_INTENT">
</action>
</intent-filter>

</receiver>
</application>

5. Example
This example will explain you how to create BroadcastReceiver to intercept custom intent.
Once you are familiar with custom intent, then you can program your application to intercept
system generated intents. So let's follow the following steps to modify the Android application we
created in Hello World Example chapter
Step

Description

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You will use Android studio to create an Android application and

name it asMy Application under a package com.example.My Application as
explained in the Hello World Example chapter.

Modify main activity file MainActivity.java to

add broadcastIntent()method.

Create a new java file called MyReceiver.java under the

packagecom.example.My Application to define a BroadcastReceiver.

An application can handle one or more custom and system intents

without any restrictions. Every indent you want to intercept must be
registered in your AndroidManifest.xml file using <receiver.../> tag

Modify the default content of res/layout/activity_main.xml file to

include a button to broadcast intent.

No need to modify the string file, Android studio take care of

string.xml file.

Run the application to launch Android emulator and verify the result
of the changes done in the application.

Following is the content of the modified main activity filesrc/com.example.My

Application/MainActivity.java. This file can include each of the fundamental life cycle methods. We
have added broadcastIntent()method to broadcast a custom intent.
package com.example.My Application;

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.content.Intent;

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import android.view.View;

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
}

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.activity_main, menu);
return true;
}

// broadcast a custom intent.

public void broadcastIntent(View view){
Intent intent = new Intent();
intent.setAction("com.tutorialspoint.CUSTOM_INTENT");
sendBroadcast(intent);
}
}

Following is the content of src/com.example.My Application/MyReceiver.java:

package com.example.My Application;

import android.content.BroadcastReceiver;
import android.content.Context;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.widget.Toast;

public class MyReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {

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@Override
public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
Toast.makeText(context, "Intent Detected.", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
}
}

Following will the modified content of AndroidManifest.xml file. Here we have added
<service.../> tag to include our service:
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
package="com.example.My Application"
android:versionCode="1"
android:versionName="1.0" >

<uses-sdk
android:minSdkVersion="8"
android:targetSdkVersion="22" />

<application
android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
android:label="@string/app_name"
android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >

<activity
android:name=".MainActivity"
android:label="@string/title_activity_main" >

<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER"/>
</intent-filter>

</activity>

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<receiver android:name="MyReceiver">

<intent-filter>
<action android:name="com.tutorialspoint.CUSTOM_INTENT">
</action>
</intent-filter>

</receiver>

</application>
</manifest>

Following will be the content of res/layout/activity_main.xml file to include a button to

broadcast our custom intent
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools" android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin" tools:context=".MainActivity">

<TextView
android:id="@+id/textView1"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="Example of Broadcast"
android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
android:textSize="30dp" />

<TextView
android:id="@+id/textView2"

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android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="Tutorials point "
android:textColor="#ff87ff09"
android:textSize="30dp"
android:layout_above="@+id/imageButton"
android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
android:layout_marginBottom="40dp" />

<ImageButton
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:id="@+id/imageButton"
android:src="@drawable/abc"
android:layout_centerVertical="true"
android:layout_centerHorizontal="true" />

<Button
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:id="@+id/button2"
android:text="Broadcast Intent"
android:onClick="broadcastIntent"
android:layout_below="@+id/imageButton"
android:layout_centerHorizontal="true" />

</RelativeLayout>

Following will be the content of res/values/strings.xml to define two new constants

<resources>
<string name="menu_settings">Settings</string>
<string name="title_activity_main">My Application</string>
</resources>

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 Let's try to run our modified Hello World! application we just modified. I assume you had
created your AVD while doing environment set-up. To run the app from Android studio, open one
of your project's activity files and click Run icon from the tool bar. Android Studio installs the
app on your AVD and starts it and if everything is fine with your set-up and application, it will
display following Emulator window

Now to broadcast our custom intent, let's click on Broadcast Intent button, this will
broadcast our custom intent "com.tutorialspoint.CUSTOM_INTENT"which will be intercepted by
our registered BroadcastReceiver i.e. MyReceiver and as per our implemented logic a toast will
appear on the bottom of the the simulator as follows

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 You can try implementing other BroadcastReceiver to intercept system generated intents
like system boot up, date changed, low battery etc.

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Source link
1. Content: http://www.tutorialspoint.com/android/android_resources.htm

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ANDROID TUTORIAL
Broadcast Receivers
Direck2b
This document created by TRIEU NGO HUY (DIRECK2B), please link to me when youre intend to
use this document in some where else.

NGO HUY TRIEU (Direck2b)

[email protected]

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