How to create a Looper thread, then send it a message immediately?

Question

I have a worker thread that sits in the background, processing messages. Something like this:

class Worker extends Thread {

    public volatile Handler hand         


        

Answer 1

Eventual solution (minus error checking), thanks to CommonsWare:

class Worker extends HandlerThread {

    // ...

    public synchronized void waitUntilReady() {
        d_handler = new Handler(getLooper(), d_messageHandler);
    }

}

And from the main thread:

Worker worker = new Worker();
worker.start();
worker.waitUntilReady(); // <- ADDED
worker.handler.sendMessage(...);

This works thanks to the semantics of HandlerThread.getLooper() which blocks until the looper has been initialized.

---

Incidentally, this is similar to my solution #1 above, since the HandlerThread is implemented roughly as follows (gotta love open source):

public void run() {
    Looper.prepare();
    synchronized (this) {
        mLooper = Looper.myLooper();
        notifyAll();
    }
    Looper.loop();
}

public Looper getLooper() {
    synchronized (this) {
        while (mLooper == null) {
            try {
                wait();
            } catch (InterruptedException e) {
            }
        }
    }
    return mLooper;
}

The key difference is that it doesn't check whether the worker thread is running, but that it has actually created a looper; and the way to do so is to store the looper in a private field. Nice!

Answer 2

take a look at the source code of HandlerThread

@Override
     public void run() {
         mTid = Process.myTid();
         Looper.prepare();
         synchronized (this) {
             mLooper = Looper.myLooper();
             notifyAll();
         }
         Process.setThreadPriority(mPriority);
         onLooperPrepared();
         Looper.loop();
         mTid = -1;
     }

Basically, if you are extending Thread in worker and implementing your own Looper, then your main thread class should extend worker and set your handler there.

Answer 3

This is my solutions: MainActivity:

//Other Code

 mCountDownLatch = new CountDownLatch(1);
        mainApp = this;
        WorkerThread workerThread = new WorkerThread(mCountDownLatch);
        workerThread.start();
        try {
            mCountDownLatch.await();
            Log.i("MsgToWorkerThread", "Worker Thread is up and running. We can send message to it now...");
        } catch (InterruptedException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        Toast.makeText(this, "Trial run...", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
        Message msg = workerThread.workerThreadHandler.obtainMessage();
        workerThread.workerThreadHandler.sendMessage(msg);

The WorkerThread Class:

public class WorkerThread extends Thread{

    public Handler workerThreadHandler;
    CountDownLatch mLatch;

    public WorkerThread(CountDownLatch latch){

        mLatch = latch;
    }


    public void run() {
        Looper.prepare();
        workerThreadHandler = new Handler() {
            @Override
            public void handleMessage(Message msg) {

                Log.i("MsgToWorkerThread", "Message received from UI thread...");
                        MainActivity.getMainApp().runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {

                            @Override
                            public void run() {
                                Toast.makeText(MainActivity.getMainApp().getApplicationContext(), "Message received in worker thread from UI thread", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
                                //Log.i("MsgToWorkerThread", "Message received from UI thread...");
                            }
                        });

            }

        };
        Log.i("MsgToWorkerThread", "Worker thread ready...");
        mLatch.countDown();
        Looper.loop();
    }
}

Answer 4

    class WorkerThread extends Thread {
            private Exchanger<Void> mStartExchanger = new Exchanger<Void>();
            private Handler mHandler;
            public Handler getHandler() {
                    return mHandler;
            }
            @Override
            public void run() {
                    Looper.prepare();
                    mHandler = new Handler();
                    try {
                            mStartExchanger.exchange(null);
                    } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                            e.printStackTrace();
                    }
                    Looper.loop();
            }

            @Override
            public synchronized void start() {
                    super.start();
                    try {
                            mStartExchanger.exchange(null);
                    } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                            e.printStackTrace();
                    }
            }
    }