Multiple DatePickers, force close when screen is rotated

Question

This is my first Android-app and prior to this I had no Java knowledge at all.

I used the following code (found in another question, by Adam L.), I have 28 timepickers and it worked great after altering the code a bit.
But one thing I notice is that I get force close (nullpointerexception) when I am in a timepickerdialog (or datepickerdialog when using the code as it is displayed here) and change orientation of the screen.
I guess I need to save some info with onDestroy and restoring it again with onStart but I do not know how to accomplish this.
In my own code I use timepickerdialogs but Adam L.s code is cleaner so solving the problem there would also solve my own problem.

import java.util.Calendar;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.app.DatePickerDialog;
import android.app.Dialog;
import android.app.DatePickerDialog.OnDateSetListener;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.DatePicker;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class MultiDatePickerActivity extends Activity {

private TextView startDateDisplay;
private TextView endDateDisplay;
private Button startPickDate;
private Button endPickDate;
private Calendar startDate;
private Calendar endDate;

static final int DATE_DIALOG_ID = 0;

private TextView activeDateDisplay;
private Calendar activeDate;

protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.multidatepicker);

    /*  capture our View elements for the start date function   */
    startDateDisplay = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.startDateDisplay);
    startPickDate = (Button) findViewById(R.id.startPickDate);

    /* get the current date */
    startDate = Calendar.getInstance();

    /* add a click listener to the button   */
    startPickDate.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
        public void onClick(View v) {
            showDateDialog(startDateDisplay, startDate);
        }
    });

    /* capture our View elements for the end date function */
    endDateDisplay = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.endDateDisplay);
    endPickDate = (Button) findViewById(R.id.endPickDate);

    /* get the current date */
    endDate = Calendar.getInstance();

    /* add a click listener to the button   */
    endPickDate.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
        public void onClick(View v) {
            showDateDialog(endDateDisplay, endDate);
        }
    });

    /* display the current date (this method is below)  */
    updateDisplay(startDateDisplay, startDate);
    updateDisplay(endDateDisplay, endDate);
}

private void updateDisplay(TextView dateDisplay, Calendar date) {
    dateDisplay.setText(
            new StringBuilder()
                // Month is 0 based so add 1
                .append(date.get(Calendar.MONTH) + 1).append("-")
                .append(date.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH)).append("-")
                .append(date.get(Calendar.YEAR)).append(" "));

}

public void showDateDialog(TextView dateDisplay, Calendar date) {
    activeDateDisplay = dateDisplay;
    activeDate = date;
    showDialog(DATE_DIALOG_ID);
}

private OnDateSetListener dateSetListener = new OnDateSetListener() {
    @Override
    public void onDateSet(DatePicker view, int year, int monthOfYear, int dayOfMonth) {
        activeDate.set(Calendar.YEAR, year);
        activeDate.set(Calendar.MONTH, monthOfYear);
        activeDate.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, dayOfMonth);
        updateDisplay(activeDateDisplay, activeDate);
        unregisterDateDisplay();
    }
};

private void unregisterDateDisplay() {
    activeDateDisplay = null;
    activeDate = null;
}

@Override
protected Dialog onCreateDialog(int id) {
    switch (id) {
        case DATE_DIALOG_ID:
            return new DatePickerDialog(this, dateSetListener, activeDate.get(Calendar.YEAR), activeDate.get(Calendar.MONTH), activeDate.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH));
    }
    return null;
}

@Override
protected void onPrepareDialog(int id, Dialog dialog) {
    super.onPrepareDialog(id, dialog);
    switch (id) {
        case DATE_DIALOG_ID:
            ((DatePickerDialog) dialog).updateDate(activeDate.get(Calendar.YEAR), activeDate.get(Calendar.MONTH), activeDate.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH));
            break;
    }
}
}

I think this is the interesting part of the logcat in Eclipse:

12-18 11:32:52.415: INFO/ActivityManager(577): Displayed activity se.bergsland.manydatepickers/.ManyDatePickers: 993 ms
12-18 11:32:57.625: DEBUG/dalvikvm(1734): GC freed 1950 objects / 104136 bytes in 192ms
12-18 11:33:00.396: INFO/WindowManager(577): Config changed: { scale=1.0 imsi=0/0 locale=en_US touch=3 key=2/1/2 nav=3 orien=2 }
12-18 11:33:00.535: DEBUG/StatusBar(577): updateResources
12-18 11:33:00.595: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(1763): Shutting down VM
12-18 11:33:00.595: WARN/dalvikvm(1763): threadid=3: thread exiting with uncaught exception (group=0x4000fe70)
12-18 11:33:00.605: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1763): Uncaught handler: thread main exiting due to uncaught exception
12-18 11:33:00.615: INFO/WindowManager(577): onOrientationChanged, rotation changed to 0
12-18 11:33:00.625: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1763): java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{se.bergsland.manydatepickers/se.bergsland.manydatepickers.ManyDatePickers}: java.lang.NullPointerException
12-18 11:33:00.625: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1763):     at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2268)
12-18 11:33:00.625: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1763):     at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2284)
12-18 11:33:00.625: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1763):     at android.app.ActivityThread.handleRelaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:3278)
12-18 11:33:00.625: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1763):     at android.app.ActivityThread.access$1900(ActivityThread.java:112)
12-18 11:33:00.625: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1763):     at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1696)
12-18 11:33:00.625: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1763):     at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)
12-18 11:33:00.625: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1763):     at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:123)
12-18 11:33:00.625: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1763):     at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:3948)
12-18 11:33:00.625: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1763):     at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
12-18 11:33:00.625: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1763):     at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:521)
12-18 11:33:00.625: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1763):     at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:782)
12-18 11:33:00.625: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1763):     at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:540)
12-18 11:33:00.625: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1763):     at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)
12-18 11:33:00.625: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1763): Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
12-18 11:33:00.625: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1763):     at se.bergsland.manydatepickers.ManyDatePickers.onCreateDialog(ManyDatePickers.java:102)
12-18 11:33:00.625: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1763):     at android.app.Activity.restoreManagedDialogs(Activity.java:857)
12-18 11:33:00.625: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1763):     at android.app.Activity.performRestoreInstanceState(Activity.java:801)
12-18 11:33:00.625: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1763):     at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnRestoreInstanceState(Instrumentation.java:1172)
12-18 11:33:00.625: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1763):     at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2245)
12-18 11:33:00.625: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1763):     ... 12 more

Answer 1

Use this code in your Activity:

@Override

public void onConfigurationChanged(Configuration newConfig) {
    super.onConfigurationChanged(newConfig);
}

Use this in your manifest file:

<activity android:name="MyActivity" android:label="@string/app_name" 
    android:configChanges="orientation|keyboardHidden"></activity>

Answer 2

Fargath's advice wasn't the best I'm afraid. Your problem is that activateDate is null when onCreateDialog() is called after a configuration change. Since you only set it once in onClick(). You need to set it in onStart(). Setting it in onResume() won't work, but you might need to set it there as well, see my problem Android lifecycle: Fill in data in activity in onStart() or onResume()?.

If you want to update the dates at the exact moment that the dialog is being shown, then you can do a direct Calendar.getInstance() via updateDate() in onPrepareDialog().

The problem with Fargath's solution is that you are hiding the soft keyboard, but the problem still exists on devices with a hardware keyboard such as the G1. The same goes for incoming phone calls. I'm not sure what onConfigurationChanged() has to do with it.