Question

I have IP client application which has the following objects:

1. Socket instance connected to IP server.

2. Thread instance, executing ThreadFunction. This function continuously reads the socket, when it is connected.

Now I am trying to understand, what should I do, when activity is recreated (for example, after changing screen orientation). Is Socket instance lost? What happens with ThreadFunction? Looking at the other side behavior (IP server), I see that the client, Android application, is not disconnected. So, what should be my strategy in this case: should I create these resources again, or try to restore them by some way?

Answer 1

The answer to your question related to what happens to the resources when the application is destroyed, is that everything goes away, including sockets and runnables.

Even from the server side, the socket will be gone as soon as the server try to communicate over it.

Your best solution, as said already is to manage it using a service. It’s quite similar to use an activity, and I encorage you to see a couple of examples.

If you realy want to make what you have now consistent without using a service, you may disable the screen rotation adding android:configChanges="orientation" to AndroidManifest.xml