Check if application is installed - Android

Question

I'm trying to install apps from Google Play. I can understand that on opening the Google Play store URL, it opens the Google Play and when I press the back button, the activity resumes.

Intent marketIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, Uri.parse(appURL));
marketIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_HISTORY | Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_WHEN_TASK_RESET);
startActivity(marketIntent);

When I went back to the activity, I tried calling this onResume() to check if the app is installed, but I receive an error:

@Override
protected void onResume() {
    super.onResume();
    boolean installed = false;
    while (!installed) {
        installed  =   appInstalledOrNot(APPPACKAGE);
        if (installed) {
             Toast.makeText(this, "App installed", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
        }
    }
}

private boolean appInstalledOrNot(String uri) {
  PackageManager pm = getPackageManager();
  boolean app_installed = false;
  try {
      pm.getPackageInfo(uri, PackageManager.GET_ACTIVITIES);
      app_installed = true;
  }
  catch (PackageManager.NameNotFoundException e) {
      app_installed = false;
  }
  return app_installed ;
}

The error is as follows:

E/AndroidRuntime(796): java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{com.example.appinstaller/com.example.appinstaller.MainActivity}: android.content.ActivityNotFoundException: No Activity found to handle Intent { act=android.intent.action.VIEW dat=market://details?id=com.package.name flg=0x40080000 }

I guess the activity is onPause(). Is there a better way to implement it? I'm trying to check if the app has finished installing.

Answer 1

Try this:

private boolean isPackageInstalled(String packageName, PackageManager packageManager) {
    try {
        packageManager.getPackageInfo(packageName, 0);
        return true;
    } catch (PackageManager.NameNotFoundException e) {
        return false;
    }
}

It attempts to fetch information about the package whose name you passed in. Failing that, if a NameNotFoundException was thrown, it means that no package with that name is installed, so we return false.

Note that we pass in a PackageManager instead of a Context, so that the method is slightly more flexibly usable and doesn't violate the law of Demeter. You can use the method without access to a Context instance, as long as you have a PackageManager instance.

Use it like this:

public void someMethod() {
    // ...

    PackageManager pm = context.getPackageManager();
    boolean isInstalled = isPackageInstalled("com.somepackage.name", pm);

    // ...
}