Android - passing data between threads

Question

I need to pass a huge amount of data (raw bytes) between threads - listener thread and another thread that deals with the data manipulation. Whats the best and fastest way to do that?

Answer 1

As others have pointed out it really depends on the task you have. I would suggest using a Message. For example if one of your threads is a producer of said byte[] data and the other is the consumer you may have something of the sorts:

public class ProducerThread extends Thread{
    byte[] data;

    public void run(){
        while (isRunning){
            Looper.prepare(); 
            data = someMethodToGetYourByteData(); 
            Message dataToSend = Message.obtain();
            Bundle bundle = new Bundle();
            bundle.putByteArray("data", data);
            dataToSend.setData(bundle);
            if (ConsumerThread.mHandler!=null){  
               ConsumerThread.mHandler.sendMessage(dataToSend);
            }
            Looper.loop();  
         }
     }

and your consumer thread:

public class ConsumerThread extends Thread{
    public static Handler mHandler;  
    byte[] data;

    public void run(){
       while (running){
          Looper.prepare();
          mHandler = new Handler(){
            @Override
            public void handleMessage(Message msg) {
                super.handleMessage(msg);
                mHandler.obtainMessage();
                data = msg.getData().getFloatArray("data");
                doSomethingWithData(data);
           };
         }
         Looper.loop();
      }

Keep in mind though that this may not be the best pattern to use, as many elsewhere on SO point out that it is not the best idea to extend a Thread, but it generally depends on the use case.