What is more efficient Broadcast Receiver or Handler?

Question

I know that onReceive() of the Broadcast receiver and handleMessage() of Handler run on the same UI thread. Suppose I want to communicate between two services, within the same app (process) . I can extend a broadcast receiver class and register an event

OR

a Handler and then pass its instance to the other service to be used for sendMessage() calls. In both the cases I would need to add some new switch case. But which approach is more efficient ? Lets assume that the code is thread safe (no UI updations).

Answer 1

You should not use normal broadcasts to communicate between Activities and Services inside of your own app. You should use local broadcasts instead! First you have to define a BroadcastReceiver like for normal broadcasts:

private static final String ACTION_EXAMPLE = "ACTION_EXAMPLE";

private final BroadcastReceiver receiver = new BroadcastReceiver() {
    @Override
    public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
        if(ACTION_EXAMPLE.equals(intent.getAction())) {
            ...
        }  
    }
};

After that you can get the LocalBroadcastManager like this:

LocalBroadcastManager manager = LocalBroadcastManager.getInstance(getActivity());

And you can register the BroadcastReceiver like this (normally you register a BroadcastReciever in onResume()):

@Override
public void onResume() {
    super.onResume();

    LocalBroadcastManager manager = LocalBroadcastManager.getInstance(getActivity());
    IntentFilter filter = new IntentFilter(ACTION_EXAMPLE);
    manager.registerReceiver(this.receiver, filter);
}

Don't forget to unregister the BroadcastReceiver later on (in onPause()):

@Override
public void onPause() {
    super.onPause();

    LocalBroadcastManager manager = LocalBroadcastManager.getInstance(getActivity());
    manager.unregisterReceiver(this.receiver);
}

And finally you can send local broadcasts like this:

LocalBroadcastManager manager = LocalBroadcastManager.getInstance(getActivity());
manager.sendBroadcast(intent);