How to return a result from an Android activity when navigating up?

Question

Suppose I have two activities - MainActivity and NameActivity. MainActivity opens NameActivity in order to get some input from the user, by calling startActivityForResult(...).

In NameActivity, I have overridden the finish method, so that pressing back will return the name as a result:

@Override
public void finish() {
    String name = nameEditText.getText().toString();
    Intent intent = new Intent();
    intent.putExtra(RESULT_NAME, name);
    this.setResult(RESULT_OK, intent);

    super.finish();
}

In MainActivity, I am handling the result as follows:

@Override
protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
    super.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, data);

    switch (requestCode) {
        case REQUEST_CODE_GET_NAME:
            if (resultCode == RESULT_OK) {
                String name = data.getStringExtra(SelectionActivity.RESULT_NAME);
                Toast.makeText(this, "Hi " + name + "!", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
            } else {
                Toast.makeText(this, "Cancelled", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
            }
            break;
        default:
            break;
    }
}

Is there a way to get NameActivity to do the same thing when using the Up button in the action bar?

Note: My app targets Android 4.0 (ICS) and above, so the Up navigation is happening "automagically" - that is, I haven't written any code and have simply specified the parent activity in my Manifest as follows:

<activity
    android:name="com.example.subactivitytest.NameActivity"
    android:label="@string/title_activity_name"
    android:parentActivityName="com.example.subactivitytest.MainActivity" >
    <meta-data
        android:name="android.support.PARENT_ACTIVITY"
        android:value="com.example.subactivitytest.MainActivity" />
</activity>

Thanks!

Answer 1

You could always just call your finish method in your onOptionsItemSelected() method:

    @Override
    public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
         switch (item.getItemId()) {
            case android.R.id.home:
                    finish();
                    return true;
          }

Also, make sure you've enabled the home button: getActionBar().setHomeButtonEnabled(true);

Answer 2

Move your code to onPause() to ensure it is always stored. But I don't know why your method isn't working--I thought the up button does finish the activity.