How to get current foreground activity context in android?

(Note: An official API was added in API 14: See this answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/29786451/119733)

DO NOT USE PREVIOUS (waqas716) answer.

You will have memory leak problem, because of the static reference to the activity. For more detail see the following link http://android-developers.blogspot.fr/2009/01/avoiding-memory-leaks.html

To avoid this, you should manage activities references.
Add the name of the application in the manifest file:

<application
    android:name=".MyApp"
    ....
 </application>

Your application class :

  public class MyApp extends Application {
        public void onCreate() {
              super.onCreate();
        }

        private Activity mCurrentActivity = null;
        public Activity getCurrentActivity(){
              return mCurrentActivity;
        }
        public void setCurrentActivity(Activity mCurrentActivity){
              this.mCurrentActivity = mCurrentActivity;
        }
  }

Create a new Activity :

public class MyBaseActivity extends Activity {
    protected MyApp mMyApp;

    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        mMyApp = (MyApp)this.getApplicationContext();
    }
    protected void onResume() {
        super.onResume();
        mMyApp.setCurrentActivity(this);
    }
    protected void onPause() {
        clearReferences();
        super.onPause();
    }
    protected void onDestroy() {        
        clearReferences();
        super.onDestroy();
    }

    private void clearReferences(){
        Activity currActivity = mMyApp.getCurrentActivity();
        if (this.equals(currActivity))
            mMyApp.setCurrentActivity(null);
    }
}

So, now instead of extending Activity class for your activities, just extend MyBaseActivity. Now, you can get your current activity from application or Activity context like that :

Activity currentActivity = ((MyApp)context.getApplicationContext()).getCurrentActivity();

Leave a Comment

tech