Best use of HandlerThread over other similar classes

Question

I am trying to understand the best use case of using HandlerThread.

As per definition:

\"Handy class for starting a new thread t

Answer 1

Here is a link to the source code for HandlerThread and Looper.

If you look at the two you will see that a HandlerThread is exactly what it says it is - a convenient way to start a Thread that has a Looper. Why does this exist? Because threads, by default do not have a message loop. The HandlerThread is just an easy way to create one that does. Could you duplicate this function with Handler, Thread, and Looper - judging from the source code - the answer is yes.

An Executor is different. An Executor takes submitted runnable tasks and - guess what -executes them. Why is this necessary? It allows you to decouple the execution of the task from its actual substance. When would you use this? Say you had a situation that required executing multiple tasks at the same time. You could choose, using an Executor, to run them all on a single thread so that they are executed serialy. Or you could use a fixed thread pool so that some, but not all are run at the same time. In either case the substance of the task - i.e. what it's actually doing - is seperate from the manner in which it is being executed.