Using Alarmmanager to start a service at specific time

Question

I have searched a lot of places but couldnt find a clean sequential explanation of how to start a service (or if thats not possible then an activity) at a specific time daily using the AlarmManager??

I want to register several such alarms and triggering them should result in a service to be started. I'll be having a small piece of code in the service which can then execute and i can finish the service for good....

Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
Calendar cur_cal = Calendar.getInstance();
cur_cal.setTimeInMillis(System.currentTimeMillis());
Date date = new Date(cur_cal.get(Calendar.YEAR), cur_cal.get(Calendar.MONTH), cur_cal.get(Calendar.DATE), 16, 45);
cal.setTime(date);
Intent intent = new Intent(ProfileList.this, ActivateOnTime.class);
intent.putExtra("profile_id", 2);
PendingIntent pintent = PendingIntent.getService(ProfileList.this, 0, intent, 0);
AlarmManager alarm = (AlarmManager)getSystemService(Context.ALARM_SERVICE);
alarm.set(AlarmManager.RTC_WAKEUP, cal.getTimeInMillis(), pintent);
System.out.println("The alarm set!!");

i tried this code to activate the alarm at 4.45... but its not firing the service... do i have to keep the process running?? M i doing anything wrong???

One more thing, my service gets perfectly executed in case i use the following code:

long firstTime = SystemClock.elapsedRealtime();
alarm.setRepeating(AlarmManager.ELAPSED_REALTIME_WAKEUP, firstTime, 30*1000,pintent);

Answer 1

HI friends, After a lot of researching and with reference from "Pentium10"'s question on the same topic i managed to get it working. Though i still cant understand why the "date" concept and the Calendar(non GregorianCalendar) object which i have mentioned in the question are not working correctly.

Calendar cur_cal = new GregorianCalendar();
cur_cal.setTimeInMillis(System.currentTimeMillis());//set the current time and date for this calendar

Calendar cal = new GregorianCalendar();
cal.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR, cur_cal.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR));
cal.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 18);
cal.set(Calendar.MINUTE, 32);
cal.set(Calendar.SECOND, cur_cal.get(Calendar.SECOND));
cal.set(Calendar.MILLISECOND, cur_cal.get(Calendar.MILLISECOND));
cal.set(Calendar.DATE, cur_cal.get(Calendar.DATE));
cal.set(Calendar.MONTH, cur_cal.get(Calendar.MONTH));
Intent intent = new Intent(ProfileList.this, IntentBroadcastedReceiver.class);
PendingIntent pintent = PendingIntent.getService(ProfileList.this, 0, intent, 0);
AlarmManager alarm = (AlarmManager)getSystemService(Context.ALARM_SERVICE);
alarm.setRepeating(AlarmManager.RTC_WAKEUP, cal.getTimeInMillis(), 30*1000, pintent);