Getting extras from an intent through a bundle won't allow updated values

Question

I am working on a simple AlarmManager example, and have run into an interesting problem. I am setting a boolean value to be passed through our intent based on a button that is clicked. There is a "repeat alarm" and "one time alarm" button that tells us whether or not we are supposed to repeat our Alarm or have a one time Alarm, I am utilizing the ability to pass extra values with intents (intent.putExtra("key","value");), nothing new, nothing special. The problem I am having is that once the "key" has been set once, it can't be reset.

I have a MainActivity that includes the line

AlarmReceiver alarm = new AlarmReceiver();

within that activity, there are 2 buttons. If I click the "repeat alarm" button, I call

alarm.SetAlarm(context);

which is the method inside of my AlarmReceiver class:

// Set our repeating alarm
public void SetAlarm(Context context){
    AlarmManager am = (AlarmManager) context.getSystemService(Context.ALARM_SERVICE);
    Intent repeatIntent = new Intent(context, AlarmReceiver.class);
    repeatIntent.putExtra("one_time", false);               // this should change our boolean
    PendingIntent pi = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(context, 0 , repeatIntent, 0);
    // Set to go off after 5 seconds
    am.setRepeating(AlarmManager.RTC_WAKEUP, System.currentTimeMillis(), 1000 * 5, pi);
}

and if I click the "one time alarm" button, I call

alarm.SetOneTimeAlarm(context);

which is the method in of my AlarmReceiver class:

// Set our one time alarm
public void SetOneTimeAlarm(Context context){
    AlarmManager am = (AlarmManager) context.getSystemService(Context.ALARM_SERVICE);
    Intent oneTimeIntent = new Intent(context, AlarmReceiver.class);
    oneTimeIntent.putExtra("one_time", true);               // this should change our boolean
    PendingIntent pi = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(context,  0, oneTimeIntent, 0);
    am.set(AlarmManager.RTC_WAKEUP, System.currentTimeMillis(), pi);
}

However, within my onReceive() method of my AlarmReceiver class:

Bundle extras = intent.getExtras();
String messageString = "";
boolean oneTime = extras.getBoolean("one_time", false);

if(extras != null && oneTime == true){
    messageString = messageString + "One time Timer : ";
}
else{
    messageString = messageString + "Repeating Timer : ";
}

Format formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("hh:mm:ss a");
messageString = messageString + formatter.format(new Date());

Toast.makeText(context, messageString, Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();

The problem is that if I click on the "one time alarm" button, the "one_time" boolean is set to true and stays set to true even if I click the "repeat alarm" button and try to set the "one_time" boolean to false (and vice versa). Is there an issue with overriding extras from intents? Are they saved somewhere and accessed differently or something? Just not sure why I can't change the value once it is set.

Answer 1

try changing this:

PendingIntent pi = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(context, 0 , repeatIntent, 0);

to this:

PendingIntent pi = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(context, 0 , repeatIntent, PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT);

The problem is probably that your intent is not refreshed when new alarm is fired.

Answer 2

Try and use -
getIntent().removeExtra("one_time");
and the Re-set it using your initial code -
repeatIntent.putExtra("one_time", false);

I am not sure since I never looked into it before but Bundle might be a mutable object (by the behavior you are describing).