I have an ArrayList
with custom objects. Each custom object contains a variety of strings and numbers. I need the array to stick around even if the user leaves the activity and then wants to come back at a later time, however I don’t need the array available after the application has been closed completely. I save a lot of other objects this way by using the SharedPreferences
but I can’t figure out how to save my entire array this way. Is this possible? Maybe SharedPreferences
isn’t the way to go about this? Is there a simpler method?
37 Answers
After API 11 the SharedPreferences Editor
accepts Sets
. You could convert your List into a HashSet
or something similar and store it like that. When you read it back, convert it into an ArrayList
, sort it if needed and you’re good to go.
//Retrieve the values
Set<String> set = myScores.getStringSet("key", null);
//Set the values
Set<String> set = new HashSet<String>();
set.addAll(listOfExistingScores);
scoreEditor.putStringSet("key", set);
scoreEditor.commit();
You can also serialize your ArrayList
and then save/read it to/from SharedPreferences
. Below is the solution:
EDIT:
Ok, below is the solution to save ArrayList
as a serialized object to SharedPreferences
and then read it from SharedPreferences.
Because API supports only storing and retrieving of strings to/from SharedPreferences (after API 11, it’s simpler), we have to serialize and de-serialize the ArrayList object which has the list of tasks into a string.
In the addTask()
method of the TaskManagerApplication class, we have to get the instance of the shared preference and then store the serialized ArrayList using the putString()
method:
public void addTask(Task t) {
if (null == currentTasks) {
currentTasks = new ArrayList<task>();
}
currentTasks.add(t);
// save the task list to preference
SharedPreferences prefs = getSharedPreferences(SHARED_PREFS_FILE, Context.MODE_PRIVATE);
Editor editor = prefs.edit();
try {
editor.putString(TASKS, ObjectSerializer.serialize(currentTasks));
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
editor.commit();
}
Similarly we have to retrieve the list of tasks from the preference in the onCreate()
method:
public void onCreate() {
super.onCreate();
if (null == currentTasks) {
currentTasks = new ArrayList<task>();
}
// load tasks from preference
SharedPreferences prefs = getSharedPreferences(SHARED_PREFS_FILE, Context.MODE_PRIVATE);
try {
currentTasks = (ArrayList<task>) ObjectSerializer.deserialize(prefs.getString(TASKS, ObjectSerializer.serialize(new ArrayList<task>())));
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
You can get the ObjectSerializer
class from the Apache Pig project ObjectSerializer.java