How do I bind this service in Android?

Question

This is the code in my Activity. Initiate an Intent, then a Connection, right?

hello_service = new Intent(this         


        

Answer 1

I would like to point out that if you follow the service examples provided by google then your service will leak memory, see this chaps excellent post on how to do it properly (and vote for the related Google bug)

http://www.ozdroid.com/#!BLOG/2010/12/19/How_to_make_a_local_Service_and_bind_to_it_in_Android

Answer 2

Binding to a service from an Activity should be avoided as it causes probems when the Activity Configurations change (e.g. if the device is rotated the activity would get created again from scratch and the binding would have to be re-created).
Please refer to the comment from Commonsware on the following post on stackoverflow
Communicate with Activity from Service (LocalService) - Android Best Practices

Answer 3

To connect a service to an activity, all you need to write in a ServiceConnection implementation is :

@Override
public void onServiceDisconnected(ComponentName name) {
mServiceBound = false;
}

@Override
public void onServiceConnected(ComponentName name, IBinder service) {
MyBinder myBinder = (MyBinder) service;
mBoundService = myBinder.getService();
mServiceBound = true;
}

Here mBoundService is an object of your bound service. Have a look at this Bound Service Example.