BroadcastReceiver

public abstract class BroadcastReceiver
extends Object

java.lang.Object
   ↳ android.content.BroadcastReceiver


Base class for code that receives and handles broadcast intents sent by Context.sendBroadcast(Intent).

You can either dynamically register an instance of this class with Context.registerReceiver() or statically declare an implementation with the <receiver> tag in your AndroidManifest.xml.

Developer Guides

For more information about using BroadcastReceiver, read the Broadcasts developer guide.

Summary

Nested classes

class BroadcastReceiver.PendingResult

State for a result that is pending for a broadcast receiver. 

Public constructors

BroadcastReceiver()

Public methods

final void abortBroadcast()

Sets the flag indicating that this receiver should abort the current broadcast; only works with broadcasts sent through Context.sendOrderedBroadcast.

final void clearAbortBroadcast()

Clears the flag indicating that this receiver should abort the current broadcast.

final boolean getAbortBroadcast()

Returns the flag indicating whether or not this receiver should abort the current broadcast.

final boolean getDebugUnregister()

Return the last value given to setDebugUnregister(boolean).

final int getResultCode()

Retrieve the current result code, as set by the previous receiver.

final String getResultData()

Retrieve the current result data, as set by the previous receiver.

final Bundle getResultExtras(boolean makeMap)

Retrieve the current result extra data, as set by the previous receiver.

String getSentFromPackage()

Returns the package name of the app that initially sent this broadcast.

int getSentFromUid()

Returns the uid of the app that initially sent this broadcast.

final BroadcastReceiver.PendingResult goAsync()

This can be called by an application in onReceive(Context, Intent) to allow it to keep the broadcast active after returning from that function.

final boolean isInitialStickyBroadcast()

Returns true if the receiver is currently processing the initial value of a sticky broadcast -- that is, the value that was last broadcast and is currently held in the sticky cache, so this is not directly the result of a broadcast right now.

final boolean isOrderedBroadcast()

Returns true if the receiver is currently processing an ordered broadcast.

abstract void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent)

This method is called when the BroadcastReceiver is receiving an Intent broadcast.

IBinder peekService(Context myContext, Intent service)

Provide a binder to an already-bound service.

final void setDebugUnregister(boolean debug)

Control inclusion of debugging help for mismatched calls to Context.registerReceiver().

final void setOrderedHint(boolean isOrdered)

For internal use, sets the hint about whether this BroadcastReceiver is running in ordered mode.

final void setResult(int code, String data, Bundle extras)

Change all of the result data returned from this broadcasts; only works with broadcasts sent through Context.sendOrderedBroadcast.

final void setResultCode(int code)

Change the current result code of this broadcast; only works with broadcasts sent through Context.sendOrderedBroadcast.

final void setResultData(String data)

Change the current result data of this broadcast; only works with broadcasts sent through Context.sendOrderedBroadcast.

final void setResultExtras(Bundle extras)

Change the current result extras of this broadcast; only works with broadcasts sent through Context.sendOrderedBroadcast.

Inherited methods

Public constructors

BroadcastReceiver

Added in API level 1
public BroadcastReceiver ()

Public methods

abortBroadcast

Added in API level 1
public final void abortBroadcast ()

Sets the flag indicating that this receiver should abort the current broadcast; only works with broadcasts sent through Context.sendOrderedBroadcast. This will prevent any other broadcast receivers from receiving the broadcast. It will still call onReceive(Context, Intent) of the BroadcastReceiver that the caller of Context.sendOrderedBroadcast passed in.

This method does not work with non-ordered broadcasts such as those sent with Context.sendBroadcast

clearAbortBroadcast

Added in API level 1
public final void clearAbortBroadcast ()

Clears the flag indicating that this receiver should abort the current broadcast.

getAbortBroadcast

Added in API level 1
public final boolean getAbortBroadcast ()

Returns the flag indicating whether or not this receiver should abort the current broadcast.

Returns
boolean True if the broadcast should be aborted.

getDebugUnregister

Added in API level 1
public final boolean getDebugUnregister ()

Return the last value given to setDebugUnregister(boolean).

Returns
boolean

getResultCode

Added in API level 1
public final int getResultCode ()

Retrieve the current result code, as set by the previous receiver.

Returns
int int The current result code.

getResultData

Added in API level 1
public final String getResultData ()

Retrieve the current result data, as set by the previous receiver. Often this is null.

Returns
String String The current result data; may be null.

getResultExtras

Added in API level 1
public final Bundle getResultExtras (boolean makeMap)

Retrieve the current result extra data, as set by the previous receiver. Any changes you make to the returned Map will be propagated to the next receiver.

Parameters
makeMap boolean: If true then a new empty Map will be made for you if the current Map is null; if false you should be prepared to receive a null Map.

Returns
Bundle Map The current extras map.

getSentFromPackage

Added in API level 34
public String getSentFromPackage ()

Returns the package name of the app that initially sent this broadcast.

Returns
String the package name of the broadcasting app or null if the current receiver cannot access the identity of the broadcasting app

getSentFromUid

Added in API level 34
public int getSentFromUid ()

Returns the uid of the app that initially sent this broadcast.

Returns
int the uid of the broadcasting app or Process#INVALID_UID if the current receiver cannot access the identity of the broadcasting app

goAsync

Added in API level 11
public final BroadcastReceiver.PendingResult goAsync ()

This can be called by an application in onReceive(Context, Intent) to allow it to keep the broadcast active after returning from that function. This does not change the expectation of being relatively responsive to the broadcast, but does allow the implementation to move work related to it over to another thread to avoid glitching the main UI thread due to disk IO.

As a general rule, broadcast receivers are allowed to run for up to 10 seconds before the system will consider them non-responsive and ANR the app. Since these usually execute on the app's main thread, they are already bound by the ~5 second time limit of various operations that can happen there (not to mention just avoiding UI jank), so the receive limit is generally not of concern. However, once you use goAsync, though able to be off the main thread, the broadcast execution limit still applies, and that includes the time spent between calling this method and ultimately PendingResult.finish().

If you are taking advantage of this method to have more time to execute, it is useful to know that the available time can be longer in certain situations. In particular, if the broadcast you are receiving is not a foreground broadcast (that is, the sender has not used Intent#FLAG_RECEIVER_FOREGROUND), then more time is allowed for the receivers to run, allowing them to execute for 30 seconds or even a bit more. This is something that receivers should rarely take advantage of (long work should be punted to another system facility such as JobScheduler, Service, or see especially JobIntentService), but can be useful in certain rare cases where it is necessary to do some work as soon as the broadcast is delivered. Keep in mind that the work you do here will block further broadcasts until it completes, so taking advantage of this at all excessively can be counter-productive and cause later events to be received more slowly.

Returns
BroadcastReceiver.PendingResult Returns a PendingResult representing the result of the active broadcast. The BroadcastRecord itself is no longer active; all data and other interaction must go through PendingResult APIs. The PendingResult.finish() method must be called once processing of the broadcast is done.

isInitialStickyBroadcast

Added in API level 5
public final boolean isInitialStickyBroadcast ()

Returns true if the receiver is currently processing the initial value of a sticky broadcast -- that is, the value that was last broadcast and is currently held in the sticky cache, so this is not directly the result of a broadcast right now.

Returns
boolean

isOrderedBroadcast

Added in API level 5
public final boolean isOrderedBroadcast ()

Returns true if the receiver is currently processing an ordered broadcast.

Returns
boolean

onReceive

Added in API level 1
public abstract void onReceive (Context context, 
                Intent intent)

This method is called when the BroadcastReceiver is receiving an Intent broadcast. During this time you can use the other methods on BroadcastReceiver to view/modify the current result values. This method is always called within the main thread of its process, unless you explicitly asked for it to be scheduled on a different thread using Context.registerReceiver(BroadcastReceiver, IntentFilter, String, android.os.Handler). When it runs on the main thread you should never perform long-running operations in it (there is a timeout of 10 seconds that the system allows before considering the receiver to be blocked and a candidate to be killed). You cannot launch a popup dialog in your implementation of onReceive().

If this BroadcastReceiver was launched through a <receiver> tag, then the object is no longer alive after returning from this function. This means you should not perform any operations that return a result to you asynchronously. If you need to perform any follow up background work, schedule a JobService with JobScheduler. If you wish to interact with a service that is already running and previously bound using bindService(), you can use peekService(Context, Intent).

The Intent filters used in Context.registerReceiver(BroadcastReceiver, IntentFilter) and in application manifests are not guaranteed to be exclusive. They are hints to the operating system about how to find suitable recipients. It is possible for senders to force delivery to specific recipients, bypassing filter resolution. For this reason, onReceive() implementations should respond only to known actions, ignoring any unexpected Intents that they may receive.

Parameters
context Context: The Context in which the receiver is running.

intent Intent: The Intent being received.

peekService

Added in API level 3
public IBinder peekService (Context myContext, 
                Intent service)

Provide a binder to an already-bound service. This method is synchronous and will not start the target service if it is not present, so it is safe to call from onReceive(Context, Intent). For peekService() to return a non null IBinder interface the service must have published it before. In other words some component must have called Context.bindService(Intent, ServiceConnection, int) on it.

Parameters
myContext Context: The Context that had been passed to onReceive(android.content.Context, android.content.Intent)

service Intent: Identifies the already-bound service you wish to use. See Context.bindService(Intent, ServiceConnection, int) for more information.

Returns
IBinder

setDebugUnregister

Added in API level 1
public final void setDebugUnregister (boolean debug)

Control inclusion of debugging help for mismatched calls to Context.registerReceiver(). If called with true, before given to registerReceiver(), then the callstack of the following Context.unregisterReceiver() call is retained, to be printed if a later incorrect unregister call is made. Note that doing this requires retaining information about the BroadcastReceiver for the lifetime of the app, resulting in a leak -- this should only be used for debugging.

Parameters
debug boolean

setOrderedHint

Added in API level 1
public final void setOrderedHint (boolean isOrdered)

For internal use, sets the hint about whether this BroadcastReceiver is running in ordered mode.

Parameters
isOrdered boolean

setResult

Added in API level 1
public final void setResult (int code, 
                String data, 
                Bundle extras)

Change all of the result data returned from this broadcasts; only works with broadcasts sent through Context.sendOrderedBroadcast. All current result data is replaced by the value given to this method.

This method does not work with non-ordered broadcasts such as those sent with Context.sendBroadcast

Parameters
code int: The new result code. Often uses the Activity Activity.RESULT_CANCELED and Activity.RESULT_OK constants, though the actual meaning of this value is ultimately up to the broadcaster.

data String: The new result data. This is an arbitrary string whose interpretation is up to the broadcaster; may be null.

extras Bundle: The new extra data map. This is a Bundle holding arbitrary data, whose interpretation is up to the broadcaster. Can be set to null. This completely replaces the current map (if any).

setResultCode

Added in API level 1
public final void setResultCode (int code)

Change the current result code of this broadcast; only works with broadcasts sent through Context.sendOrderedBroadcast. Often uses the Activity Activity.RESULT_CANCELED and Activity.RESULT_OK constants, though the actual meaning of this value is ultimately up to the broadcaster.

This method does not work with non-ordered broadcasts such as those sent with Context.sendBroadcast

Parameters
code int: The new result code.

setResultData

Added in API level 1
public final void setResultData (String data)

Change the current result data of this broadcast; only works with broadcasts sent through Context.sendOrderedBroadcast. This is an arbitrary string whose interpretation is up to the broadcaster.

This method does not work with non-ordered broadcasts such as those sent with Context.sendBroadcast

Parameters
data String: The new result data; may be null.

setResultExtras

Added in API level 1
public final void setResultExtras (Bundle extras)

Change the current result extras of this broadcast; only works with broadcasts sent through Context.sendOrderedBroadcast. This is a Bundle holding arbitrary data, whose interpretation is up to the broadcaster. Can be set to null. Calling this method completely replaces the current map (if any).

This method does not work with non-ordered broadcasts such as those sent with Context.sendBroadcast

Parameters
extras Bundle: The new extra data map; may be null.