Question

Is it a bad idea creating a separate class and use it as a storage which consists only of static data variables?

I am currently developing an app for android, but the question is general for Java.

In case of android, I am moving across activities and I would like to store some global/static flags/varibles in that separate class and being able to access them from any activity I want.

PS. The data is required only for the session time.

Answer 1

Well, that’s not a bad idea. You can use such type of a class in Android. But a small correction here. Instead of maintaining a class that holds static Data, you can make that class to extend Application class and use it store the data.

Here is a example,

public class HelloApplication extends Application {
        private int globalVariable=1;

        public int getGlobalVariable() {
                return globalVariable;
        }

        public void setGlobalVariable(int globalVariable) {
                this.globalVariable = globalVariable;
        }
        @Override
        public void onCreate() {
                //reinitialize variable
        }
}

And in your Activity, do this,

(HelloApplication)getApplication()).setGlobalVariable(10);
int valiable=((HelloApplication)getApplication()).getGlobalVariable();

Taken from here..

And speak about SharedPreference, you should consider using them only when the value has to be stored for a long time. if not, you should make use of the Application class and use setters and getters which is the legitimate way to do this.