Question

I have a simple Activity class with an onCreate() method that sets a private boolean field if all initialisation tasks succeed. I read the value of this boolean in other parts of the class.

public class MyActivity extends Activity
{
    private boolean initializationSucceeded;

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)
    {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

        ...

        //if everything succeeded...
        initializationSucceeded = true;
    }
}

Is it necessary to override onSaveInstanceState() to save the state of this boolean, or is what I have fine? I’m afraid I don’t quite know what happens to private field members during all of these activity lifecycle edge cases, so hopefully someone can explain. Thanks.

Answer 1

no need to save it, because everytime onCreate is called and completed initialisationsucceeded will be true. OnCreate is the first thing called after lifecycle events like rotations. Unless you have a thread that is started in onCreate that requires the truth value of initialasationsucceeded then you should be fine.