CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidandroid-asynctaskandroid-service
Ragaisis
Ragaisis

Reputation: 2750

Best way to implement long-term communication with server

I need to open and keep long term connection with server to send messages, recieve response. Also sometimes server sends information without user request, so android device should listen to the server and react.

There are AsyncTasks, where I can implement socket connection, but main problem is that I know only one way - to send request and recieve response once. Then AsyncTask (and connection) is closed.

I have also read about services (that I never used).

Is it possible to make long term (1-4 hours) connection with server that keeps connection alive, listens for user commands (for example, need to send data to server when button is clicked) and recieves response or requests from server (and then changes UI). Will service (and connection) be killed when phone fall asleep, needs more memmory or other? Is it big cost to the battery?

Maybe there are other ways? Thank you in advance for all your answers

P.S. sorry for poor english skills, hope you understood :)

Upvotes: 1

Views: 993

Answers (3)

s.d
s.d

Reputation: 29436

You should probably use a Service, running in background.

Also, you really need not keep the service always alive with a network connection. You can opt for Google Cloud Messaging, which supports 2-way communication via the XMPP protocol. Using this protocol you can:

  1. Receive notifications from server, start the service and do necessary processing.
  2. Send notifications to server, upon which server does any necessary work.

These notifications are short 4kb messages , so they are better used as "commands" of a publish/subscribe model, which initiate other network heavy connections such as uploads and downloads. Rest of the time the service can be inactive to reduce resources consumption.

Upvotes: 2

bogdan
bogdan

Reputation: 782

If you need to communicate with the server when you want to send data to the server you can do it and wait for answer. If you need to send data from server to the device then take a look at push notifications.

Upvotes: 0

Stephan
Stephan

Reputation: 16729

According to Android API Reference
"A Service is an application component that can perform long-running operations in the background"

And yes it consumes battery and you have to stop it by yourself: " It's important that your application stops its services when it's done working, to avoid wasting system resources and consuming battery power"

So I think Services fit your needs.

Upvotes: 0

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