Static way to get 'Context' in Android?

Question

Is there a way to get the current Context instance inside a static method?

I\'m looking for that way because I hate saving the \'Context\' instance eac

Answer 1

Assuming we're talking about getting the Application Context, I implemented it as suggested by @Rohit Ghatol extending Application. What happened then, it's that there's no guarantee that the context retrieved in such a way will always be non-null. At the time you need it, it's usually because you want to initialize an helper, or get a resource, that you cannot delay in time; handling the null case will not help you. So I understood I was basically fighting against the Android architecture, as stated in the docs

Note: There is normally no need to subclass Application. In most situations, static singletons can provide the same functionality in a more modular way. If your singleton needs a global context (for example to register broadcast receivers), include Context.getApplicationContext() as a Context argument when invoking your singleton's getInstance() method.

and explained by Dianne Hackborn

The only reason Application exists as something you can derive from is because during the pre-1.0 development one of our application developers was continually bugging me about needing to have a top-level application object they can derive from so they could have a more "normal" to them application model, and I eventually gave in. I will forever regret giving in on that one. :)

She is also suggesting the solution to this problem:

If what you want is some global state that can be shared across different parts of your app, use a singleton. [...] And this leads more naturally to how you should be managing these things -- initializing them on demand.

so what I did was getting rid of extending Application, and pass the context directly to the singleton helper's getInstance(), while saving a reference to the application context in the private constructor:

private static MyHelper instance;
private final Context mContext;    

private MyHelper(@NonNull Context context) {
    mContext = context.getApplicationContext();
}

public static MyHelper getInstance(@NonNull Context context) {
    synchronized(MyHelper.class) {
        if (instance == null) {
            instance = new MyHelper(context);
        }
        return instance;
    }
}

the caller will then pass a local context to the helper:

Helper.getInstance(myCtx).doSomething();

So, to answer this question properly: there are ways to access the Application Context statically, but they all should be discouraged, and you should prefer passing a local context to the singleton's getInstance().

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For anyone interested, you can read a more detailed version at fwd blog