Android Application Model (3)

© Frank Mueller & Seokyong Hong (TA)

North Carolina State University

Center for Efficient, Secure and Reliable Computing

Except as otherwise noted, the content of this presentation is

licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
Android Application Package
 Android applications are written in Java.
 An Android application is bundled by the aapt tool into an Android
package (.apk)

.apk

Java Code Data Files • res/layout: declaration layout files

• res/drawable: intended for drawing
• res/admin: bitmaps, animations for
Resources
Files
transitions
• res/values: externalized values
strings, colors, styles, etc
• res/xml: general XML files used at runtime
• res/raw: binary files (e.g. sound)

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Application Components
 Android applications do not have a single entry point (e.g. no
main() function).
 They have essential components that the system can instantiate
and run as needed.
 Four basic components

Components Description
Activity UI component typically corresponding to one screen
Service Background process without UI
Broadcast Receiver Component that responds to broadcast Intents
Content Provider Component that enables applications to share data

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Components - Activity
 An activity is usually a single screen:
— Implemented as a single class extending Activity.
— Displays user interface controls (views).
— Reacts on user input/events.
 An application typically consists of several screens:
— Each screen is implemented by one activity.
— Moving to the next screen means starting a new activity.
— An activity may return a result to the previous activity.

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Components - Activity (Cont)
 Typically, one of the activities is marked as the first one that
should be presented to the user when the application is launched.
 Created “Activity” must be defined into the application’s manifest.

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Components - Service
 A service does not have a visual user interface, but rather runs in
the background for an indefinite period time.
Example: music player, network download, etc
 Each service extends the Service base class.
 It is possible to bind to a running service and start the service if
it's not already running.
 While connected, it is possible communicate with the service
through an interface defined in an AIDL (Android Interface
Definition Language).
Notification

Communication Service
Pause/rewind Background running
/stop/restart for playback
Media Player
Activity Binder
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Components - Service (Cont)
 Adding a "Service" with Android is quite similar than for an
"Activity".

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Components - Broadcast Receivers
 A broadcast receiver is a component that receives and reacts to
broadcast announcements (Intents).
 Many broadcasts originate in system code.
E.g. announcements that the time zone has changed, that
the battery is low, etc.

Broadcast Receiver Activity

•Get incoming calls

•Get incoming SMS

SMS

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Components - Broadcast Receivers
(Cont)
 A broadcast receiver is a component that receives and reacts to
broadcast announcements. (Cont)
 Applications can also initiate broadcasts.
E.g. to let other applications know that some data has been
downloaded to the device and is available for them to use.

 All receivers extend the BroadcastReceiver base class.

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Components - Content Providers
Application

Activity
Activity Activity
Activity
Application Application

Activity
Activity Content
Content Resolver
Resolver Service
Service

Content
Content Resolver
Resolver Content
Content Provider
Provider Content
Content Resolver
Resolver

Remote
Data
Data SQLite XML
XML Store

 A content provider makes a specific set of the application's data

available to other applications.
 The data can be stored in the file system, in an SQLite, or in
any other manner that makes sense.
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Components - Content Providers (Cont)
 Using a content provider is the only way to share data between
Android applications.
 It extends the ContentProvider bas class and implements a
standard set of methods to allow access to a data store.
 Querying
 Delete, update, and insert data

 Applications do not call these methods directly.

 They use a ContentResolver object and call its methods
instead.
 A ContentResolver can talk to any content provider.

 Content is represented by URI and MIME type.

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Intents
 Intents are simple message objects each of which consists of
 Action to be performed
(MAIN/VIEW/EDIT/PICK/DELETE/DIAL/etc)
 Data to operate on (URI)

startActivity(new Intent(Intent.VIEW_ACTION, Uri.parse("http://www.fhnw.ch"));

startActivity(new Intent(Intent.VIEW_ACTION, Uri.parse("geo:47.480843,8.211293"));

startActivity(new
Intent(Intent.EDIT_ACTION,Uri.parse("content://contacts/people/1"));

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Intents (Cont)
 Intent Filters
 A component's intent filters in the manifest file inform Android
of the kinds of intents the component is able to handle.
 An example

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Intents (Cont)
 Intent Filters (Cont)
 An example (Cont)
① A component can have any number of intent filters, each
one declaring a different set of capabilities.
② The first filter in the example indicates that the
activity is the entry point for the application.
③ The second filter declares an action that the activity
can perform on a particular type of data.

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Android Component Model
 An Android application is packaged in a .apk file.
 A .apk file is a collection of components.
Application
(.apk)
Process

Activity
Activity Activity
Activity

Activity
Activity Activity
Activity

Content
Content Provider
Provider

Service
Service Service
Service

 Components share a Linux process: by default, one process

per .apk file.
 .apk files are isolated and communicate with each other via
Intents or AIDL.
 Every component has a managed lifecycle.
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Activities and Tasks
 One activity can start another, including one defined in a
different application.

Activity
Activity Asynchronous Message (Intent) Activity
Activity

Context.startActivity(Intent) No return
or
Activity.startActivityForResult
(Intent, Request_Code)
To get some result
(e.g. to get a photo)

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Activities and Tasks (Cont)
 Tasks
 A task is a collection of related Activities.
 It is capable of spanning multiple processes.

Application (.apk) Application (.apk)

Process Process

Activity
Activity Activity
Activity Activity
Activity Activity
Activity

Activity
Activity Activity
Activity Activity
Activity Activity
Activity

Content
Content Provider
Provider Content
Content Provider
Provider

Service
Service Service
Service Service
Service Service
Service

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Activities and Tasks (Cont)
 Tasks (Cont)
 All activities in a task are arranged in a stack.

Instance
Instance of
of Activity
Activity B
B The one that's currently
running
Instance
Instance of
of Activity
Activity C
C

Instance
Instance of
of Activity
Activity B
B

Instance
Instance of
of Activity
Activity A
A The one that began the task
(typically, an activity the user
A Stack selected in the application
launcher)

① If one activity starts another, the new activity is pushed on

the stack and it becomes the running activity.
② When the user presses the BACK key, the current activity is
popped from the stack and the previous one resumes.
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Activities and Tasks (Cont)
 Affinities
 An affinity means a preference for each activity to belong to
a certain task.
 An individual affinity can be set for each activity:

 By default, a new activity is launched into the task of the

activity that called startActivity().

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Activities and Tasks (Cont)
 Affinities (Cont)
 Two circumstances where the affinity comes into play:
① FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK flag
If the Intent object passed to startActivity() contains the
FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK flag, the system looks for a
different task to house the new activity.
– If there's already an existing task with the same affinity as
the new activity, the activity is launched into that task.
– If not, it begins a new task.

② allowTaskReparenting attribute
If an activity has its allowTaskReparenting attribute set to
"true", it can move from the task it starts in to the task it
has an affinity for when that task comes to the fore.
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Activities and Tasks (Cont)
 Launch Modes
 There are four launch modes:
standard (default) / singleTop / singleTask / singleInstance

 A launch mode can be set for each activity:

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Activities and Tasks (Cont)
 Launch Modes (Cont)
 The modes differ from each other on four points:
① Which task will hold the activity that responds to the
intent
Original Task Original Task New Task

New
New Activity
Activity

Activity
Activity A
A Activity
Activity A
A

Root
Root Activity
Activity Root
Root Activity
Activity New
New Activity
Activity

standard/singleTop
without singleTask/singleInstance
FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK

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Activities and Tasks (Cont)
 Launch Modes (Cont)
 The modes differ from each other on four points: (Cont)
② Whether there can be multiple instances of the activity
Task A Task B Task A Task B

Activity
Activity B
B

Activity
Activity C
C

Activity
Activity B
B Activity
Activity C
C Activity
Activity B
B

Activity
Activity A
A Activity
Activity D
D Activity
Activity A
A Activity
Activity C
C

Activity B and Activity C are Activity C is singleTask or

standard/singleTop singleInstance

– A "standard" or "singleTop" activity can be instantiated many

times.
– A "singleTask" or "singleInstance" activity is limited to just one
instance.
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Activities and Tasks (Cont)
 Launch Modes (Cont)
 The modes differ from each other on four points: (Cont)
③ Whether the instance can have other activities in its
task
"standard" • These modes permit multiple activities to belong to
"singleTop" the task.
• A "singleTask" activity will always be the root
"singleTask" activity of the task.

"singleInstance" • An activity stands alone as the only activity in its

task.

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Activities and Tasks (Cont)
 Launch Modes (Cont)
 The modes differ from each other on four points: (Cont)
④ Whether a new instance of the class will be launched to
handle a new intent

Activity
Activity D
D

Activity
Activity D
D Activity
Activity D
D Activity
Activity D
D The existing
An intent arrives for instance D is
an activity of type D expected to handle
Activity
Activity C
C Activity
Activity C
C Activity
Activity C
C the new intent
(since it's at the top
Activity
Activity B
B Activity
Activity B
B Activity
Activity B
B of the stack)

Activity
Activity A
A Activity
Activity A
A Activity
Activity A
A

Original Task If D is"standard" If D is"singleTop"

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Activities and Tasks (Cont)
 Launch Modes (Cont)
 The modes differ from each other on four points: (Cont)
④ Whether a new instance of the class will be launched to
handle a new intent (Cont)

Activity
Activity B
B Activity
Activity B
B

Activity
Activity D
D Activity
Activity D
D Activity
Activity D
D The existing
An intent arrives for instance B is not
an activity of type B expected to handle
Activity
Activity C
C Activity
Activity C
C Activity
Activity C
C the new intent
(since it's not at the
Activity
Activity B
B Activity
Activity B
B Activity
Activity B
B top of the stack)

Activity
Activity A
A Activity
Activity A
A Activity
Activity A
A

Original Task If B is"standard" If B is"singleTop"

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Activities and Tasks (Cont)
 Launch Modes (Cont)
 The modes differ from each other on four points: (Cont)
④ Whether a new instance of the class will be launched to
handle a new intent (Cont)

A "singleInstance"
activity is always at
An intent arrives for the top of the stack,
Activity
Activity B
B
an activity of type B Activity
Activity B
B so it is always in
position to handle
the intent.
Original Task If B is"singleInstance"

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Activities and Tasks (Cont)
 Launch Modes (Cont)
 The modes differ from each other on four points: (Cont)
④ Whether a new instance of the class will be launched to
handle a new intent (Cont)

Activity
Activity B
B Activity
Activity B
B Activity B can handle
An intent arrives for the intent since it is
Activity
Activity A
A
an activity of type B Activity
Activity A
A in position.

Original Task If B is"singleTask"

Activity
Activity A
A Activity
Activity A
A Activity B cannot
handle the intent
An intent arrives for since it is not in
Activity
Activity B
B an activity of type B Activity
Activity B
B position and the
intent is dropped.

Original Task If B is"singleTask"

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Activities and Tasks (Cont)
 Clearing the Stack
 Default Control
If the user leaves a task for a long time, the system
clears the task of all activities except the root activity.
 Some activity attributes that can be used to modify the
default control:
① If alwaysRetainTaskState is set to the root activity of a
task
– The task retains all activities in its stack even after a long period.
② If clearTaskOnLaunch is set to the root activity of a task
– The stack is cleared down to the root activity whenever the user
leaves the task and returns to it.
– The user always returns to the task in its initial state, even after a
momentary absence.

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Activities and Tasks (Cont)
 Clearing the Stack (Cont)
 Some activity attributes that can be used to modify the
default control: (Cont)
③ If finishOnTaskLaunch is set to an activity of a task
- The activity remains part of the task only for the current session.
- If the user leaves and then returns to the task, it no longer is
present.

 Another way to force activities to be removed from the

stack (FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP flag):

If an intent includes the FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP flag and the

target task already has an instance of the type of activity that should
handle the intent in its stack, all activities above that instance are cleared
away.
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Activities and Tasks (Cont)
 Starting Tasks
 How to set up an activity as the entry point of a task

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Processes and Threads
 Processes
 When the first of an application's components needs to be
run, Android starts a Linux process for it with a single
thread of execution (Main Thread).

Application
Application 1 1
Process
Process Main
Main Thread
Thread
(.apk)
(.apk)

 Android may decide to kill a process to reclaim resources.

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Processes and Threads (Cont)
 Process (Cont)
 We can specify a process where an individual component
should run by setting a process name to “process” attribute
of <activity>, <service>, <receiver>, or <provider>.
 Each component can run in its own process.
 Some components share a process while others do not.
 Components of different applications also can run in the
same process.
 We can set a default value that applies to all components by
setting a default process to "process attribute of
<application>.

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Processes and Threads (Cont)
 Threads
 Main Thread
 All components are instantiated in the main thread of the
specified process.
 System calls to the components are dispatched from the
main thread.
 Methods that respond to those calls always run in the
main thread of the process.
 No component should perform long or blocking
operations (e.g. network downloads, computation loops)

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Processes and Threads (Cont)
 Threads (Cont)
 Anything that may not be completed quickly should be
assigned to a different thread.
Threads are created in code using standard Java Thread
objects.
 Some convenience classes Android provides for managing
threads:
 Looper for running a message loop within a thread
 Handler for processing messages
 HandlerThread for providing a handy way for starting a
new thread that has a looper

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Component Lifecycles
 Activity Lifecycle
 Three states
State Description
Running • An activity is in the foreground of the screen (at the top of
the activity stack for the current task).
Paused • An activity has lost focus but is still visible to the user.
Stopped • An activity is completely obscured by another activity.
• It still retains all state and member information.

 If an activity is paused or stopped, the system can drop it

from memory either by:
1. asking it to finish (calling its finish() method)
2. simply killing its process.

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Component Lifecycles
 Activity Lifecycle (Cont)
 An activity's overall lifecycle
onCreate()
 Called when the activity is
first created or when the
activity was killed

onStart()
 Called just before the
activity becomes visible to
user

onRestart()
 Called after the activity has
been stopped, just prior to
it being started again

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Component Lifecycles (Cont)
 Activity Lifecycle (Cont)
 An activity's overall lifecycle (Cont)
onResume()
 Called just before the activity starts interacting with the user
 At this point, the activity is at the top of the activity stack, with
user input going to it.

onPause()
 Called when the system is about to start resuming another activity
 This method is typically used to commit unsaved changes to
persistent data, stop animations and other things that may be
consuming CPU, and so on.

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Component Lifecycles (Cont)
 Activity Lifecycle (Cont)
 An activity's overall lifecycle (Cont)
onStop()
 Called when the activity is no longer visible to the user
 This may happen because it is being destroyed, or because another
activity has been resumed and is covering it.

onDestroy()
 Called before the activity is destroyed

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Component Lifecycles (Cont)
 Activity Lifecycle (Cont)
 Three nested loops for the entire lifecycle

Visible Lifetime
• During this time, the user can see the activity on-screen, though it
may be in the foreground and interacting with the user.
• onStart() and onStop() can be called multiple times, as the activity
alternates between being visible and hidden to the user.

Foreground Lifetime
• During this time, the activity is in front of all other activities on
screen and is interacting with the user.

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Component Lifecycles (Cont)
 Service Lifecycle
 Two ways that a service can be used
The service can be started and allowed to run until
someone stops it or it stops itself.
– started by calling Context.startService() and stopped by calling
Context.stopService()
The service can be operated programmatically using an
interface that it defines and exports.
– Clients establish a connection to the Service object and use that
connection to call into the service.
– established by calling Context.bindService() and closed by calling
Context.unbindService()

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Component Lifecycles (Cont)
 Service Lifecycle (Cont)

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Component Lifecycles (Cont)
 Broadcast Receiver Lifecycle
 Only single callback method

void onReceive(Context curContext, Intent broadcastMsg)

When a broadcast message arrives for the receiver,

Android calls the method and passes it the Intent object
containing the message.
 
 A process with an active broadcast receiver is protected
from being killed but a process with only inactive components
can be killed by the system at any time.

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Component Lifecycles (Cont)
 Processes and Lifecycles
 Android tries to maintain a process for as long as possible,
but eventually it will need to remove old processes when
memory runs low.
To determine candidates to be killed, Android places each
process into an "importance hierarchy" based on the
components running in it and the state of those components.

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Component Lifecycles (Cont)
 Processes and Lifecycles (Cont)
 Five levels in the Importance Hierarchy

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