Handler vs AsyncTask vs Thread [closed]

Answer 1

Let me try and answer the question here with an example :) - MyImageSearch [Kindly refer the image here of the main activity screen - containing an edit text / search button / grid view]

Description of MyImageSearch - Once user enters the details on the edit text field and clicks on the search button, we will search images on the internet via the web services provided by flickr (you only need to register there to get a key/secret token) - for searching we send an HTTP Request and GET JSON Data back in response containing the url's of individual images which we will then use to load the grid view.

My Implementation - In the main activity I will define a inner class which extends the AsyncTask to send the HTTP Request in doInBackGround Method and fetch the JSON Response and update my local ArrayList of FlickrItems which I am going to use to update my GridView via the FlickrAdapter (extends the BaseAdapter) and call the adapter.notifyDataSetChanged() in the onPostExecute() of AsyncTask to reload the grid view. Note that here the HTTP Request is a blocking call because of which I have done it via the AsyncTask. And, I can cache the items in adapter to increase the performance or store them on SDCard. The grid that I will be inflating in the FlickrAdapter contains in my implementation a progressbar and image view. Below you can find the code for mainActivity which I used.

Answer to the Question Now - So once we have the JSON data for fetching individual Images we can implement the logic of getting the images in background via Handlers or Threads or AsyncTask. We should note here that since my images once downloaded must be displayed on the UI/main thread we cannot simply use threads as it is since they don't have access to the context. In the FlickrAdapter, the choices I could think of:

• Choice 1: Create a LooperThread [extends thread] - and keep on downloading images sequentially in one thread by keeping this thread open [looper.loop()]
• Choice 2: Make use of a Thread Pool and post the runnable via myHandler which contains reference to my ImageView, but since the views in Grid View are recycled, again the problem might arise where image at index 4 is displayed at index 9 [download may take more time]
• Choice 3 [I used this]: Make use of a Thread Pool and send a message to myHandler, which contains data related to ImageView's index and ImageView itself, so while doing handleMessage() we will update the ImageView only if currentIndex matches the index of the Image we tried to download.
• Choice 4: Make use of AsyncTask to download the images in background, but here I will not have access to the number of threads I want in the thread pool and it varies with different android version, but in Choice 3 I can make of conscious decision of the size of thread pool depending on device configuration being used.

Here the source code:

public class MainActivity extends ActionBarActivity {

    GridView imageGridView;
    ArrayList items = new ArrayList();
    FlickrAdapter adapter;

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

        imageGridView = (GridView) findViewById(R.id.gridView1);
        adapter = new FlickrAdapter(this, items);
        imageGridView.setAdapter(adapter);
    }

    // To avoid a memory leak on configuration change making it a inner class
    class FlickrDownloader extends AsyncTask {



        @Override
        protected Void doInBackground(Void... params) {
            FlickrGetter getter = new FlickrGetter();

            ArrayList newItems = getter.fetchItems();

            // clear the existing array
            items.clear();

            // add the new items to the array
            items.addAll(newItems);

            // is this correct ? - Wrong rebuilding the list view and should not be done in background
            //adapter.notifyDataSetChanged();

            return null;
        }

        @Override
        protected void onPostExecute(Void result) {
            super.onPostExecute(result);

            adapter.notifyDataSetChanged();
        }

    }

    public void search(View view) {
        // get the flickr data
        FlickrDownloader downloader = new FlickrDownloader();
        downloader.execute();
    }

    @Override
    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
        getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main, menu);
        return true;
    }

    @Override
    public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
        // Handle action bar item clicks here. The action bar will
        // automatically handle clicks on the Home/Up button, so long
        // as you specify a parent activity in AndroidManifest.xml.
        int id = item.getItemId();
        if (id == R.id.action_settings) {
            return true;
        }
        return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
    }
}

I hope my answer though long will help in understanding some of the finer details.