How can I invoke a method every 5 seconds in android?

Question

I\'m working in an application which must send a GPS location every 5 seconds to the server when I choose (auto send button on). I\'m new with android so I don\'t know how I

Answer 1

Look at the AlarmManager class http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/AlarmManager.html and particularly the setRepeating function. Its going to be a bit more complicated than you'd like though.

Answer 2

Ridcully is right, there is probably no reason to send the current location every 5 seconds. Here is the rational behind that:

You really only care about 2 things about the users location:

1. Where are they right now?

2. Have they moved since I got their first location?

So once you get a satisfactory initial location, you can just register to get callbacks whenever the users moves like this:

private LocationListener mLocationListener;

@Override
public void onCreate(final Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

    mLocationListener = new LocationListener() {
        @Override
        public void onLocationChanged(final Location location) {
            updateLocation(location);
        }

        @Override
        public void onStatusChanged(final String provider,
                final int status, final Bundle extras) {
        }

        @Override
        public void onProviderEnabled(final String provider) {
        }

        @Override
        public void onProviderDisabled(final String provider) {
        }
    };
}

That being said, you could obviously do what these others have said and run the timer every 5 seconds. The thing is, most good locations take 10-20 seconds to run, so you might only want to run it in that interval. Also FYI, this WILL kill battery

Answer 3

I have faced exactly the same problem, sending location periodically. I've used a handler and its postDelayed method.

The periodic call part of my code looks like this:

private final int FIVE_SECONDS = 5000;
public void scheduleSendLocation() {
    handler.postDelayed(new Runnable() {
        public void run() {
            sendLocation();          // this method will contain your almost-finished HTTP calls
            handler.postDelayed(this, FIVE_SECONDS);
        }
    }, FIVE_SECONDS);
}

Then you just need to call scheduleSendLocation when you want to start your period calls.

Answer 4

You can use a Timer. But I think it would be better if you only send the position of it has changed a certain distance from the last one you sent. This way you'd send way less data without losing any information.