Intent : Direct binding Activity to BroadcastReceiver without service?

Question

First of all I wanted to give codes here but the codes are way to long, it can be found here

http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/article/creating-and-scheduling-alarms-in-android/

The codes in the article doesn't create service.

As per my understanding, BroadcastReceiver is used to serve an activity based on its corresponding Service ( via an intent ).

Normally we would declare such :

Intent serviceIntent = new Intent(MainActivity.this, CustomeService.class);
   startService(serviceIntent);
   registerReceiver(mReceiver, mIntentFilter);

where mReceiver will be something like :

private BroadcastReceiver mReceiver = new BroadcastReceiver() {

      @Override
      public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {

       }
}

But there's something confusing me in AlarmManager class in the example that I shared by the link :

intent = new Intent(this, MyBroadcastReceiver.class);  
            pendingIntent = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(  
                    this.getApplicationContext(), 280192, intent, PendingIntent.FLAG_CANCEL_CURRENT);  
            alarmManager = (AlarmManager) getSystemService(ALARM_SERVICE);  
            alarmManager.setRepeating(AlarmManager.RTC_WAKEUP, Calendar.getInstance().getTimeInMillis() + (i * 1000), 10000  
                    , pendingIntent);  

The line that is confusing me is this :

intent = new Intent(this, MyBroadcastReceiver.class);

the type of this MyBroadcastReceiver.class is BroadcastReceiver itself, and not Service.

So where's the Service that this MyBroadcastReceiver.class received broadcast from then?

Does BroadcastReceiver somehow create its own service?

Answer 1

the type of this MyBroadcastReceiver.class is BroadcastReceiver itself, and not Service

Correct. It is being used with PendingIntent. getBroadcast() , not getService()`.

So where's the Service that this MyBroadcastReceiver.class received broadcast from then?

Few broadcasts are sent by some Service , though that is certainly possible. In this case, the broadcast is being sent from a system process, as part of sending the PendingIntent , when the alarm time comes around.

Does BroadcastReceiver somehow create its own service?

I am not sure what you mean by "create" here. A BroadcastReceiver may delegate its work to a Service . That is a common pattern with AlarmManager : have the alarms trigger a WakefulBroadcastReceiver , which in turn delegates work to an IntentService . In that case, the reason for the indirection stems from the way that AlarmManager works with WakeLocks .