Question

I have the following code that evaluates to true in the emulator (OS 2.3.3) when “applications > settings > development > allow mock locations” is unchecked. I would expect the method to return false but it returns true.

public static boolean isMockLocationSet(Context context) {
    if (Settings.Secure.getInt(context.getContentResolver(), Settings.Secure.ALLOW_MOCK_LOCATION, 0) == 0) {
        return false; 
    }
    else {
        return true;                    
    }
}

The following change returns false, as expected (BTW what is better .equals or .ContentEquals?):

public static boolean isMockLocationSet(Context context) {
    if (Settings.Secure.getString(context.getContentResolver(), Settings.Secure.ALLOW_MOCK_LOCATION).equals("0")) { //.contentEquals("0")
        return false; 
    }
    else {
        return true;                    
    }
}

I prefer the first example because it should allow for cases where a null value may exist, assigning a default of 0 and still allowing execution of the logic without failure (in fact, I suspect this case may exist but have not proved it – e.g. a manufacturer implements Android without all the these settings established (i.e. some like Allow Mock Locations would begin their life as null)…waiting until a user check’s the setting before writing a 1 (or 0 when unchecked) to the table).

So what is the problem? Well, I get the feeling from bug reports that different devices handle this check differently but not having access to all device types, I am looking for recommendations on how to handle generically / the best. Also, why would the first example not work?

Answer 1

Well I decided to simply use the following check:

public static boolean isMockLocationSet(Context context) { 
    if (Settings.Secure.getString(context.getContentResolver(), Settings.Secure.ALLOW_MOCK_LOCATION).contentEquals("1")) { 
        return true;  
    } 
    else { 
        return false;                     
    } 
} 

This method, of course, deals with the null case appropriately–returning false.

I cannot say why the code in the original question does not work…maybe a bug in the SDK.