Get Context in a Service

user_748317 0
Viewed 154991

Is there any reliable way to get a Context from a Service?

I want to register a broadcast receiver for ACTION_PHONE_STATE_CHANGED but I don't need my app to always get this information, so I don't put it in the Manifest.

However, I can't have the broadcast receiver be killed by the GC when I need this information so I'm registering the broadcast receiver in a Service.

Hence, I need a Context to to call registerReceiver(). When I no longer need the ACTION_PHONE_STATE_CHANGED I unregister it.

Any tips?

broadcastreceiver android-service android
7 Answers

just in case someone is getting NullPointerException, you need to get the context inside onCreate().

Service is a Context, so do this:

private Context context;

@Override
public void onCreate() {
    super.onCreate();
    context = this;
}

Note:

Read: "Do not place Android context classes in static fields; this is a memory leak (and also breaks Instant Run)" Do you know what context classes are? Activity is one of them, and you should not store Activity as a static field, (or it will leak memory). However, you can store Context (as long as it is the application context) as a static field, since it outlives everything.

user_117875780

As Service is already a Context itself

you can even get it through:

Context mContext = this;

OR 

Context mContext = [class name].this;  //[] only specify the class name
// mContext = JobServiceSchedule.this;
user_97649410

If you want service context then use this keyword. if you want activity context you can access that by using by making static variable like this

public static Context context;

in the activity onCreate()

context=this;

now you can access that context inside the service

user_118685020
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