Help with passing ArrayList and parcelable Activity

Question

So I've been googling most of yesterday and last nite and just can't seem to wrap my head around how to pass an arraylist to a subactivity. There are tons of examples and snippets passing primitive data types, but what I have is an arraylist of type address (address.java below).

I've found a lot of stuff on stackoverflow and around the web on this, but nothing that got a lot of attention except for one with a GeoPoint example. Again, it looked to me like they just flattened the GeoPoint object into two integers and passed it in. I can't do that because my address class may expand to include integers, floats, whatever. Right now, the test app below is only two strings for simplicity. I thought if I could get the parcelalbe stuff working with that, the rest could follow.

Can someone post a working example for an ArrayList of a non-primitive object, or perhaps add code below to make this work?

UPDATE: code below is now working after replies/editing. Thanks!

/* helloParcel.java */                public class helloParcel extends Activity {     // holds objects of type 'address' == name and state     private ArrayList <address> myList;      @Override     public void onCreate (Bundle savedInstanceState)     {         super.onCreate (savedInstanceState);         setContentView (R.layout.main);          Button b1 = (Button) findViewById(R.id.button1);         b1.setOnClickListener(ocl);          myList = new ArrayList();         address frank   = new address ("frank", "florida");         address mary    = new address ("mary", "maryland");         address monty   = new address ("monty", "montana");          myList.add (frank);         myList.add (mary);         myList.add (monty);          // add the myList ArrayList() the the extras for the intent      }      OnClickListener ocl = new OnClickListener()      {          @Override         public void onClick(View v)          {             // fill parceable and launch activity             Intent intent = new Intent().setClass(getBaseContext (), subActivity.class);              // for some reason, I remember a posting saying it's best to create a new             // object to pass.  I have no idea why..             ArrayList <address> addyExtras = new ArrayList <address>();              for (int i = 0; i < myList.size(); i++)                 addyExtras.add (myList.get(i));              intent.putParcelableArrayListExtra ("mylist", addyExtras);             startActivity(intent);         }     }; }     /* address.java */   public class address implements Parcelable {     private String name;     private String state;     private static String TAG = "** address **";      public address (String n, String s)     {         name = n;         state = s;         Log.d (TAG, "new address");     }      public address (Parcel in)    {     Log.d (TAG, "parcel in");         name = in.readString ();         state = in.readString ();    }      public String getState ()     {         Log.d (TAG, "getState()");         return (state);     }      public String getName ()     {         Log.d (TAG, "getName()");         return (name);     }      public static final Parcelable.Creator<address> CREATOR     = new Parcelable.Creator<address>()     {          public address createFromParcel(Parcel in)           {             Log.d (TAG, "createFromParcel()");              return new address(in);          }           public address[] newArray (int size)           {             Log.d (TAG, "createFromParcel() newArray ");              return new address[size];          }     };      @Override    public int describeContents ()    {         Log.d (TAG, "describe()");        return 0;    }      @Override    public void writeToParcel (Parcel dest, int flags)    {         Log.d (TAG, "writeToParcel");        dest.writeString (name);        dest.writeString (state);    }  }   /* subActivity.java */   public class subActivity extends Activity {     private final String TAG = "** subActivity **";     private ArrayList <address> myList;      @Override     protected void onCreate (Bundle savedInstanceState)     {        super.onCreate (savedInstanceState);        Log.d (TAG, "onCreate() in subActivity");         setContentView(R.layout.subactivity);        TextView tv1 = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.tv_sub);         myList = getIntent().getParcelableArrayListExtra ("mylist");        Log.d (TAG, "got myList");         for (int i = 0; i < myList.size (); i++)        {         address a = myList.get (i);         Log.d (TAG, "state:" + a.getState ());         tv1.setText (a.getName () + " is from " + a.getState ());        }      }  } 

Answer 1

I can see a number of problems here:

1. Why use addressParcelable? Why not make address implement Parcelable, and then use:

   intent.putParcelableArrayListExtra( "addresses", addyExtras ); 

2. Your parcelable object must include a static CREATOR. See the documentation for details.

3. You are not actually adding any extras to the intent before you call startActivity(). See point 1 for a suggestion here.

I think that you will need to address all of these issues in order to get it working.

Answer 2

It can be done MUCH simpler, without all the pain-in-the-ass of implementing Parcelable... ArrayList (but NOT any List) is Serializable. So, you can put the entire list using putExtra() and retrieve it using getSerializableExtra(), as Sam said.

BUT, I want to add one more important thing: the object your array list stores has to also implement Serializable... and all other complex objects that the object may contain (in your case none) must also implement that (so it's recursive - in order to serialize an object, you must be able to serialize all of its fields).

Now, you might be asking yourself why implementing Serializable instead of Parcelable when there are already methods for reading and writing array lists of parcelables? Well... the difference is simplicity - just add implements Serializable and optionally private static final long serialVersionUID = SOME_CONSTANT and you're DONE! That is the reason why I never use Parcelable - you can do all those things using Serializable with literally 2 lines of code - instead of many method inheritances and all that stuff...