When to call activity context OR application context?

Solution 1:

getApplicationContext() is almost always wrong. Ms. Hackborn (among others) have been very explicit that you only use getApplicationContext() when you know why you are using getApplicationContext() and only when you need to use getApplicationContext().

To be blunt, "some programmers" use getApplicationContext() (or getBaseContext(), to a lesser extent) because their Java experience is limited. They implement an inner class (e.g., an OnClickListener for a Button in an Activity) and need a Context. Rather than using MyActivity.this to get at the outer class' this, they use getApplicationContext() or getBaseContext() to get a Context object.

You only use getApplicationContext() when you know you need a Context for something that may live longer than any other likely Context you have at your disposal. Scenarios include:

• Use getApplicationContext() if you need something tied to a Context that itself will have global scope. I use getApplicationContext(), for example, in WakefulIntentService, for the static WakeLock to be used for the service. Since that WakeLock is static, and I need a Context to get at PowerManager to create it, it is safest to use getApplicationContext().

• Use getApplicationContext() when you bind to a Service from an Activity, if you wish to pass the ServiceConnection (i.e., the handle to the binding) between Activity instances via onRetainNonConfigurationInstance(). Android internally tracks bindings via these ServiceConnections and holds references to the Contexts that create the bindings. If you bind from the Activity, then the new Activity instance will have a reference to the ServiceConnection which has an implicit reference to the old Activity, and the old Activity cannot be garbage collected.

Some developers use custom subclasses of Application for their own global data, which they retrieve via getApplicationContext(). That's certainly possible. I prefer static data members, if for no other reason than you can only have one custom Application object. I built one app using a custom Application object and found it to be painful. Ms. Hackborn also agrees with this position.

Here are reasons why not to use getApplicationContext() wherever you go:

• It's not a complete Context, supporting everything that Activity does. Various things you will try to do with this Context will fail, mostly related to the GUI.

• It can create memory leaks, if the Context from getApplicationContext() holds onto something created by your calls on it that you don't clean up. With an Activity, if it holds onto something, once the Activity gets garbage collected, everything else flushes out too. The Application object remains for the lifetime of your process.

Solution 2:

I think there's a lot of stuff that is poorly documented on the SDK site, this is one of them. The claim I'm going to make is that it seems as though it's better to default to using an application context and only use an activity context when you really need to. The only place where I've ever seen that you need an activity context is for a progress dialog. SBERG412 claims that you have to use an activity context for a toast message, yet the Android docs clearly show an application context being used. I've always used application context for toasts because of this Google example. If it's wrong to do so, then Google dropped the ball here.

Here's more to think about and review:

For a toast message, the Google Dev Guide uses the application context and explicitly say's to use it: Toast Notifications

In the dialogs section of the Dev guide, you see that an AlertDialog.Builder uses the application context, and then the progress bar uses an activity context. This isn't explained by Google. Dialogs

It seems like a good reason to use application context is when you want to handle configuration changes like an orientation change, and you want to retain objects which need a context like Views. If you look here: Run Time Changes There is a caution about using an activity context, which can create a leak. This can be avoided with an application context with the views that are to be retained (at least that's my understanding). In an app I'm writing, I intend to use an application context because I'm trying to hold over some views and other things on an orientation change, and I still want the activity to be destroy and recreated on orientation changes. Thus I have to use an app context to not cause a memory leak (see Avoiding memory Leaks). To me it seems there are plenty of good reasons to use the application context instead of an activity context, and to me it almost seems like you would use it more often than an activity context. That's what many Android books I've gone through seem to do, and that's what much of the Google examples I've seen do.

The Google documentation really makes it seem like using application context is perfectly fine in most cases, and in fact appears more often than using an activity context in their examples (at least the examples I've seen). If it's really such a problem to use application context, then Google really needs to place more emphasis on this. They need to make it clear, and they need to redo some of their examples. I wouldn't blame this entirely on inexperienced developers since the authority (Google) really makes it look like it's not a problem to use application contexts.