A Service is a component which runs in the background (on the UI thread) without direct interaction with the user. An unbound Service is just started, and is not bound to the lifecycle of any Activity.
To start a Service you can do as shown in the example below:
// This Intent will be used to start the service
Intent i= new Intent(context, ServiceName.class);
// potentially add data to the intent extras
i.putExtra("KEY1", "Value to be used by the service");
context.startService(i);You can use any extras from the intent by using an onStartCommand() override:
public class MyService extends Service {
public MyService() {
}
@Override
public int onStartCommand(Intent intent, int flags, int startId)
{
if (intent != null) {
Bundle extras = intent.getExtras();
String key1 = extras.getString("KEY1", "");
if (key1.equals("Value to be used by the service")) {
//do something
}
}
return START_STICKY;
}
@Nullable
@Override
public IBinder onBind(Intent intent) {
return null;
}
}