What is 'Context' on Android?

Question

In Android programming, what exactly is a Context class and what is it used for?

I read about it on the developer site, but I am unable to understand it

Answer 1

Boss Assistant Analogy

Let's have a small analogy before diving deep in the technicality of Context

Every Boss has an assistant or someone( errand boy) who does less important and more time-consuming things for him. For example, if they need a file or coffee then an assistant will be on run. Boss will not know what is going on in the background but the file or the task will be delivered

So Here
Boss - Android Application
Assistant - Context
File or cup of coffee - Resource

What official Android Developer site says about Context

Context is your access point for application-related resources

Let's see some of such resources or tasks

• Launching an activity.

• Getting an absolute path to the application-specific cache directory on the filesystem.

• Determining whether the given permission is allowed for a particular process and user ID running in the system.

• Checking whether you have been granted a particular permission.

And so on.
So if an Android application wants to start an activity, it goes straight to Context (Access Point), and the Context class gives him back the resources(Intent in this case).

Like any other class Context class has fields and methods.
You can explore more about Context in official documentation, it covers pretty much everything, available methods, fields, and even how to use fields with methods.