android services

Question

I am creating an app which needs to retrieve a textfile from a webserver.

I have the manual retrieving done, just that I am thinking of adding a service to make the service check for the textfile like every 5 minutes and then send a notification to the user when a textfile is detected.

Is it ok to use a service here or do I have to use other methods?

Because the service will be kept running.

Answer 1

The best way of doing this is setting a repeating alarm using AlarmManager, a PendingIntent and a BroadcastReceiver as well as a Service. That way you don't have the service running all the time.

So the AlarmManager fires off the PendingIntent which is then picked up by the BroadcastReceiver which then starts your Service to perform the task in the background using a Thread or AsyncTask etc. Also look at IntentService which runs a Looper to process an Intent and then shuts itself down.

Answer 2

This is a great use of a service. Just make sure to allow the user to enable or disable service component. Also, try to shut it down when its not necessary (when the user cannot react to it).