This is required for caching purporse. When you call recycle
it means that this object can be reused from this point. Internally TypedArray
contains few arrays so in order not to allocate memory each time when TypedArray
is used it is cached in Resources
class as static field. You can look at TypedArray.recycle()
method code:
/**
* Give back a previously retrieved StyledAttributes, for later re-use.
*/
public void recycle() {
synchronized (mResources.mTmpValue) {
TypedArray cached = mResources.mCachedStyledAttributes;
if (cached == null || cached.mData.length < mData.length) {
mXml = null;
mResources.mCachedStyledAttributes = this;
}
}
}
So when you call recycle
your TypedArray
object is just returned back to cache.