Question

I am trying to understand from the API the purpose of PendingIntent.

Sometimes some methods I use requires this, I still did not get the idea right.

Can anyone could explain? why can’t i just use context?

Thanks,

moshik

Answer 1

A PendingIntent is a combination of a gross action (start an activity? start a service? send a broadcast?), the action details (in the form of an Intent), and a Context. The PendingIntent is handed to the operating system, which will perform the gross action on the Intent at some future point (hence, “pending”). The Context is for security — Android will execute the PendingIntent with only the permissions of the Context, so a PendingIntent cannot access things that the Context requesting it cannot.