Question

I’ve written up a dummy activity that switches between two fragments. When you go from FragmentA to FragmentB, FragmentA gets added to the back stack. However, when I return to FragmentA (by pressing back), a totally new FragmentA is created and the state it was in is lost. I get the feeling I’m after the same thing as this question, but I’ve included a complete code sample to help root out the issue:

public class FooActivity extends Activity {
  @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    final FragmentTransaction transaction = getFragmentManager().beginTransaction();
    transaction.replace(android.R.id.content, new FragmentA());
    transaction.commit();
  }

  public void nextFragment() {
    final FragmentTransaction transaction = getFragmentManager().beginTransaction();
    transaction.replace(android.R.id.content, new FragmentB());
    transaction.addToBackStack(null);
    transaction.commit();
  }

  public static class FragmentA extends Fragment {
    @Override public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
        Bundle savedInstanceState) {
      final View main = inflater.inflate(R.layout.main, container, false);
      main.findViewById(R.id.next_fragment_button).setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
        public void onClick(View v) {
          ((FooActivity) getActivity()).nextFragment();
        }
      });
      return main;
    }

    @Override public void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle outState) {
      super.onSaveInstanceState(outState);
      // Save some state!
    }
  }

  public static class FragmentB extends Fragment {
    @Override public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
        Bundle savedInstanceState) {
      return inflater.inflate(R.layout.b, container, false);
    }
  }
}

With some log messages added:

07-05 14:28:59.722 D/OMG     ( 1260): FooActivity.onCreate
07-05 14:28:59.742 D/OMG     ( 1260): FragmentA.onCreateView
07-05 14:28:59.742 D/OMG     ( 1260): FooActivity.onResume
<Tap Button on FragmentA>
07-05 14:29:12.842 D/OMG     ( 1260): FooActivity.nextFragment
07-05 14:29:12.852 D/OMG     ( 1260): FragmentB.onCreateView
<Tap 'Back'>
07-05 14:29:16.792 D/OMG     ( 1260): FragmentA.onCreateView

It’s never calling FragmentA.onSaveInstanceState and it creates a new FragmentA when you hit back. However, if I’m on FragmentA and I lock the screen, FragmentA.onSaveInstanceState does get called. So weird…am I wrong in expecting a fragment added to the back stack to not need re-creation? Here’s what the docs say:

Whereas, if you do call addToBackStack() when removing a fragment,
then the fragment is stopped and will be resumed if the user navigates
back.

Answer 1

If you return to a fragment from the back stack it does not re-create the fragment but re-uses the same instance and starts with onCreateView() in the fragment lifecycle, see Fragment lifecycle.

So if you want to store state you should use instance variables and not rely on onSaveInstanceState().