Question

I have an onCreate method that runs the code below. In a nutshell the code retrieves data from the server and shows it on the screen for a messaging program. It only does it once, but I would like it to run the AsyncTask every 3 seconds (to try to simulate a chat). I’m pretty sure this is not the way to go about having a chat system but, I just need something that works for now (as a proof of concept) and I’ll focus on the correct way of implementing it later.

@Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.chat_box);// sd

        final Functions function = new Functions();
        final SharedPreferences prefs = PreferenceManager
                .getDefaultSharedPreferences(getBaseContext());
        whatroom = prefs.getString("chat", "null");

        new AsyncTask<String, Void, String>() {
            @Override
            protected String doInBackground(String... args) {
                return function.getInbox(args[0]);
            }

            @Override
            protected void onPostExecute(String result) {
                TextView inbox = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.inbox);
                ProgressBar progressBar = (ProgressBar) findViewById(R.id.progressBar1);
                progressBar.setVisibility(View.GONE);
                inbox.setText(result);
            }

        }.execute(whatroom);
    }

I’ve tried putting a simple while statement around the asynctask but, it just force closes.

Answer 1

You cannot reuse an AsyncTask instance. You would need to create fresh instances each pass of your loop.