Parcelable and inheritance in Android
I got an implementation of Parcelable working for a single class that involves no inheritance. I have problems figuring out the best way to implement the interface when it come to inheritance. Let's say I got this :
public abstract class A {
private int a;
protected A(int a) { this.a = a; }
}
public class B extends A {
private int b;
public B(int a, int b) { super(a); this.b = b; }
}
Question is, which is the recommended way to implement the Parcelable interface for B (in A? in both of them? How?)
Here is my best solution, I would be happy to hear from somebody that had a thought about it.
public abstract class A implements Parcelable {
private int a;
protected A(int a) {
this.a = a;
}
public void writeToParcel(Parcel out, int flags) {
out.writeInt(a);
}
protected A(Parcel in) {
a = in.readInt();
}
}
public class B extends A {
private int b;
public B(int a, int b) {
super(a);
this.b = b;
}
public static final Parcelable.Creator<B> CREATOR = new Parcelable.Creator<B>() {
public B createFromParcel(Parcel in) {
return new B(in);
}
public B[] newArray(int size) {
return new B[size];
}
};
public int describeContents() {
return 0;
}
public void writeToParcel(Parcel out, int flags) {
super.writeToParcel(out, flags);
out.writeInt(b);
}
private B(Parcel in) {
super(in);
b = in.readInt();
}
}
This is my variant. I think it's nice because it shows the symmetry between the virtual read- and write- methods very clearly.
Side note: I think Google did a really poor job at designing the Parcelable interface.
public abstract class A implements Parcelable {
private int a;
protected A(int a) {
this.a = a;
}
public void writeToParcel(Parcel out, int flags) {
out.writeInt(a);
}
public void readFromParcel(Parcel in) {
a = in.readInt();
}
}
public class B extends A {
private int b;
public B(int a, int b) {
super(a);
this.b = b;
}
public static final Parcelable.Creator<B> CREATOR = new Parcelable.Creator<B>() {
public B createFromParcel(Parcel in) {
return new B(in);
}
public B[] newArray(int size) {
return new B[size];
}
};
public int describeContents() {
return 0;
}
public void writeToParcel(Parcel out, int flags) {
super.writeToParcel(out, flags);
out.writeInt(b);
}
public void readFromParcel(Parcel in) {
super(in);
b = in.readInt();
}
}
Here is the implementation for class A in a real world setting since class B will likely have more than one object with different types other than int
It uses reflection to get the types. Then uses a sorting function to sort the fields so that reading and writing happen in the same order.
https://github.com/awadalaa/Android-Global-Parcelable