What is a BroadcastReceiver? What are its uses and how can I use it?
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Start by reading the documentation. Also, copying from Application Fundamentals:
Broadcast receivers
A broadcast receiver is a component that responds to system-wide broadcast announcements. Many broadcasts originate from the system—for example, a broadcast announcing that the screen has turned off, the battery is low, or a picture was captured. Applications can also initiate broadcasts—for example, to let other applications know that some data has been downloaded to the device and is available for them to use. Although broadcast receivers don't display a user interface, they may create a status bar notification to alert the user when a broadcast event occurs. More commonly, though, a broadcast receiver is just a "gateway" to other components and is intended to do a very minimal amount of work. For instance, it might initiate a service to perform some work based on the event.
A broadcast receiver is implemented as a subclass of BroadcastReceiver and each broadcast is delivered as an Intent object. For more information, see the BroadcastReceiver class.
Finally, read in Common Tasks how you can utilize BroadcastReceivers to listen for messages and set alarms.
kgiannakakis
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thank you @kgiannakakis .. above link is not opening can you provide me some onther link for commontask.. – Sandeep P Jun 25 '12 at 06:57
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See http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/android/devguide/guide/appendix/faq/commontasks.html#broadcastreceivers for an alternative. I believe however that the link (official documentation) is only temporarily not working. – kgiannakakis Jun 26 '12 at 08:31
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A broadcast is generated by android on occurrence of some action , BroadcastReceiver class enables the developer to handle the situation on occurence of the event/action . Action can be arrival of msg or call , download complete , boot completed , etc.
pri
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Broadcast Receivers simply respond to broadcast messages from other applications or from the system itself. These messages are sometime called events or intents. For example, applications can also initiate broadcasts to let other applications know that some data has been downloaded to the device and is available for them to use, so this is broadcast receiver who will intercept this communication and will initiate appropriate action.
Muhammed Thasneem
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I like this slide, because it focuses on Broadcast Receiver and offers simple description. The minor problem is that the updated date was a little bit old ( in 2011 ).
Link
Android Application Component: BroadcastReceiver Tutorial
(retrieved from the slide)
Broadcast Receiver
- Receives and Reacts to broadcast Intents
- No UI but can start an Activity
- Extends the BroadcastReceiver Base Class
kenju
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BroadCastReciever is an Android Component that helps you to know handle registered System Events or Application Events.
For Example:
System Events Such us : the screen has turned off, the battery is low, or a picture was captured.
Applications can also initiate broadcasts—for example, to let other applications know that some data has been downloaded to the device and is available for them to use... etc
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In simple terms
A broadcast receiver is basically an interface that you can implement so that your app can subscribe to system changes like when the system has finished booting, or a charger is connected/disconnected or airplane mode is switched on/off etc.
Rick Royd Aban
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