Android Looper and call stack

Question

I was wondering how the Looper class actually processes Runnables (via the Handler class) in the Thread that the Looper is attached to? If a looper is looping through its messageQueue then surely it would be a blocking operation for that thread? I imagine it itself must be performing some threading trickery but then how does it add the posted Runnables run() method onto the host threads stack?

Many questions! Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

EDIT:

Looking through the Looper class file class i see the below, which confuses me even more as all comments refer to the looper running in the main thread but also that its a blocking operation while waiting for new messages on the MessageQueue. How is this not blocking the UI / main thread???

    /**
     *  Run the message queue in this thread. Be sure to call
     * {@link #quit()} to end the loop.
     */
    public static final void loop() {
        Looper me = myLooper();
        MessageQueue queue = me.mQueue;

        // Make sure the identity of this thread is that of the local process,
        // and keep track of what that identity token actually is.
        Binder.clearCallingIdentity();
        final long ident = Binder.clearCallingIdentity();

        while (true) {
            Message msg = queue.next(); // might block
            //if (!me.mRun) {
            //    break;
            //}
            if (msg != null) {
                if (msg.target == null) {
                    // No target is a magic identifier for the quit message.
                    return;
                }
                if (me.mLogging!= null) me.mLogging.println(
                        ">>>>> Dispatching to " + msg.target + " "
                        + msg.callback + ": " + msg.what
                        );
                msg.target.dispatchMessage(msg);
                if (me.mLogging!= null) me.mLogging.println(
                        "<<<<< Finished to    " + msg.target + " "
                        + msg.callback);

                // Make sure that during the course of dispatching the
                // identity of the thread wasn't corrupted.
                final long newIdent = Binder.clearCallingIdentity();
                if (ident != newIdent) {
                    Log.wtf("Looper", "Thread identity changed from 0x"
                            + Long.toHexString(ident) + " to 0x"
                            + Long.toHexString(newIdent) + " while dispatching to "
                            + msg.target.getClass().getName() + " "
                            + msg.callback + " what=" + msg.what);
                }

                msg.recycle();
            }
        }
    }


    /**
     * Returns the application's main looper, which lives in the main thread of the application.
     */
    public synchronized static final Looper getMainLooper() {
        return mMainLooper;
    }

   /**
     * Return the Looper object associated with the current thread.  Returns
     * null if the calling thread is not associated with a Looper.
     */
    public static final Looper myLooper() {
        return (Looper)sThreadLocal.get();
    }

    // sThreadLocal.get() will return null unless you've called prepare().
    private static final ThreadLocal sThreadLocal = new ThreadLocal();

    /** Initialize the current thread as a looper.
      * This gives you a chance to create handlers that then reference
      * this looper, before actually starting the loop. Be sure to call
      * {@link #loop()} after calling this method, and end it by calling
      * {@link #quit()}.
      */
    public static final void prepare() {
        if (sThreadLocal.get() != null) {
            throw new RuntimeException("Only one Looper may be created per thread");
        }
        sThreadLocal.set(new Looper());
    }

Answer 1

You're absolutely right. The originating thread that constructs Looper.start() is called on becomes the thread that all posted Runnables and Messages are handled on. This indeed means that this thread is blocked.