Question

I want to make an SMS scheduling app, that sends SMS at predefined time. I have decided to use a timer for that purpose. During my research, I found out that Alarm Manager was more appropriate option for scheduling one time events in android. Any guidance would be fruitful.

I want to implement the timer in my service as shown in the give code:

public class SMSTimerService extends Service {

private Timer timer = new Timer();

Long delay = 10000L;//for long we have to keep L at the last of the integer;

@Override
public IBinder onBind(Intent intent) {
    // TODO Auto-generated method stub
    return null;//null means we are not using any IPC here
}

@Override
public void onCreate() {
    // TODO Auto-generated method stub
    super.onCreate();
    Log.i("prativa","service has started");
    startService();

}
@Override
public void onDestroy() {

    super.onDestroy();
    Log.i("prativa","service is destroying");
    shutdownService();
}
/*
 * starting the service
 * */
private void startService()
{
    TimerTask task = new TimerTask(){

        @Override
        public void run() {
            sendSMS();

        }};
    timer.schedule(task, delay);
}
private void sendSMS()
{
    String phone = "5556";
    String message = "This is my test message";

    SmsManager sms = SmsManager.getDefault();
    sms.sendTextMessage(phone, null, message, null, null);



}
private void shutdownService()
{
    if(timer != null)
        timer.cancel();
    Log.i("Prativa","Timer has stopped");

}

}

Answer 1

this is what I have for you:

http://mobile.tutsplus.com/tutorials/android/android-fundamentals-scheduling-recurring-tasks/

Edit: How to trigger a broadcast via the AlarmManager:

Intent broadCastIntent = new Intent(this, "YOURBROADCASTRECEIVER.class");
PendingIntent intent = PendingIntent pendingIntent = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(
                this, 0, intent, 0);
AlarmManager alarmManager = (AlarmManager) getSystemService(ALARM_SERVICE);
alarmManager.setRepeating(AlarmManager.RTC_WAKEUP,
                System.currentTimeMillis(),
                AlarmManager.INTERVAL_HOUR, pendingIntent);

Note that this alarm will set off immediately the first time. If you want to set it of later you can multiply “System.currentTimeMillis() * x” where x = 1000 would mean one second.