Reschedule inexactRepeating alarm with pendingIntent from sharedPreferenceChange

Question

I'm developing a test app to learn Android in which I need to fire up a service periodically to update some data. I'm using the AlarmManager with a BroadcastReceiver to set the alarm and it successfully updates the data with the default interval but I'd like to have this interval as a user defined value.
I currently have the following code to register the alarm:

In the manifest:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED"/>
<receiver android:name=".BootReceiver">
    <intent-filter>
         <action android:name="android.intent.action.BOOT_COMPLETED"/>
    </intent-filter>
</receiver>

The receiver:

public class BootReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {
    private static final String TAG = BootReceiver.class.getSimpleName();

    @Override
    public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
        Log.d(TAG,"onReceive method");
        AlarmCreator.setAlarm(context, intent);

    }
}

The actual alarm:

public static void setAlarm(Context context, Intent intent){
    Log.d(TAG, "Setting alarm");
    // I need the context here
    context.startService(new Intent(context, RefreshService.class));

    SharedPreferences prefs = PreferenceManager
            .getDefaultSharedPreferences(context);
    long interval = Long.parseLong(prefs.getString("interval",
            Long.toString(DEFAULT_INTERVAL)));
    // Here
    PendingIntent operation = PendingIntent.getService(context, -1,
            new Intent(context, RefreshService.class),
            PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT);

    // And here
    AlarmManager alarmManager = (AlarmManager) context
            .getSystemService(Context.ALARM_SERVICE);

    if (interval == 0) {
        alarmManager.cancel(operation);
        Log.d(TAG, "Cancelling alarm");
    } else {
        alarmManager.setInexactRepeating(AlarmManager.RTC,
                System.currentTimeMillis(), interval, operation);
        Log.d(TAG, "Setting alarm with interval: " + interval);
    }
}

What I've tried

I know that using the onSharedPreferenceChanged I can execute code when a preference is updated, the problem is that in order to set the alarm I need to have a Context which the Preference class doesn't provide. I am aware of getActivity().getApplicationContext() the problem is that they can return null depending on the life cycle of the Preference activity.

public class SettingsFragment extends PreferenceFragment implements OnSharedPreferenceChangeListener{
    private SharedPreferences prefs;
    @Override 
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        addPreferencesFromResource(R.xml.settings);
    }

    @Override
    public void onStart() {
        super.onStart();
        prefs = PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(getActivity());
        prefs.registerOnSharedPreferenceChangeListener(this);
    }
    @Override
    public void onSharedPreferenceChanged(SharedPreferences prefs, String key) {
        if (key.equals("interval")){
                // Since I'm not using the intent I can just simply pass null.
                AlarmCreator.setAlarm(??,null);
            }

    }

}

The question

What should I pass to AlarmCreator.setAlarm(Content,intent) so that the alarm gets correctly canceled or updated? Is it even possible? Maybe there's a better approach that I'm missing.

Additional info

I just started learning Android development but I've spent a good amount of time reading the documentation and I just couldn't figure out how to do it. There was a similar question which helped to get me on track but I found the answer too vague for my understanding at the moment.

Any Ideas would be appreciated.
Cheers.

Answer 1

It's been a while since I posted this question and now I feel stupid because the answer was obvious.
Call getActivity() and pass that for the context.
You can call getActivity() in any fragment or this if you need the context inside an Activity.
Keep in mind that the kind of context you pass matters, you can get different results if you use the activity's context instead of the application context (getActivity().getApplicationContext()) in certains situations.
Check out this link to learn more.