Question

I’m trying to create an MVC pattern in my android whack-a-mole game.

I’m generating mole locations in the model via an inner class thread and want to eventually pass it to the view so that it would generate a sprite for it.

how do I create a way for my view to continuously receive the generated mole locations from my model?

I’ve edited my code below to capture the essentials behind them.

MODEL :

public class GameModel{
   public GameModel(){
      spawner = new MoleSpawner();
      spawner.start();
   }
.
.
.
   private class MoleSpawner extends Thread{
      private int location;
      public void run() {
          location = new Random().nextInt(20);
          try{
             sleep (1000);
          } catch (InterruptedException ex){
             ex.printStackTrace();
          }
      }
   }
}

VIEW:

public GameView{
.
.
.
  public void createMoleSprite(int newlocation){
     //create sprites here
     //newlocation should come from the MODEL
     //this method must be triggered everytime the MODEL creates a new location
  }
}

Answer 1

One of the ways you can implement this is by using Handlers.

It can be more complex, but I’ll give you a simple example on how to implement this.

In the Activity where your game is running, get it’s Handler by using

Handler mHandler = new Handler();

Then, when you instantiate your model, pass it the mHandler object as well as a reference to your activity. In your model, whenever you need to spawn a new mole, do

 mHandler.post(new Runnable() {

   gameActivity.spawnNewMoleAt(location);


 });

This can become a lot more complex, expecially if you control the rate at which moles are spawned dynamically, but you can build on this.

You can find a good tutorial on Handlers HERE.