How to use the AlertDialog's return value

Question

In mostly situation, I need the user to make a choice many times.( I do something and raise a message box for the user to make a choice and continue do other thing(maybe called block)) So I wrote a common function

public static void ShowMsgDialog(Context self,String title, String msg)

Although it correctly response the user’s action, but always pending (that means while I click the button, the previous action's value is visible by global variable’s value) Is there exist any function which I could got the message box's return value and use it like this:

int ret = ShowMsgDialog(Context self,String title, String msg);

the follow is my code:

public class MainActivity extends Activity {
    private Button button1;
    enum Answer { YES, NO, ERROR};
    static Answer choice;
    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);     
        button1 = (Button)findViewById(R.id.button1);

        button1.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {          
            @Override
            public void onClick(View v) {
                // TODO Auto-generated method stub
                ShowMsgDialog(MainActivity.this, "Information", "you choice? "); 
                if(choice == Answer.YES)
                    Toast.makeText(MainActivity.this, "YOU CHOICED YES", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
                else if (choice == Answer.NO)
                    Toast.makeText(MainActivity.this, "YOU CHOICED NO", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
                else
                    Toast.makeText(MainActivity.this, "ERROR OCUS", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();

                //int ret = ShowMsgDialog(MainActivity.this, "Information", "you choice? ");  
            }
        });     
    }

    public static void ShowMsgDialog(Context self,String title, String Msg){
        AlertDialog.Builder dlgAlert = new AlertDialog.Builder(self);
        dlgAlert.setTitle(title);
        dlgAlert.setMessage(Msg);
        dlgAlert.setPositiveButton("OK",new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
            public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int whichButton) {
                // call your code here
                choice = Answer.YES;
            }
        });
        dlgAlert.setNegativeButton("Cancel", new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int which) {
                // TODO Auto-generated method stub
                choice = Answer.NO;
            }
        });
        dlgAlert.show();
    }



}

Answer 1

I don't think that there is any way to get a value from an alertDialog like this

int ret = ShowMsgDialog(Context self,String title, String msg);

because by the time your dialog will be shown the onClick() of your Button will have already finished.

So i suggest using another way to implement this.

Since the method to create the alertDialog is inside your activity it is as easy as creating a function in your activity like below:

public void userChose(String choise){

         if(choice == Answer.YES)
            //YOUR CODE FOR YES HERE
            Toast.makeText(MainActivity.this, "YOU CHOSE YES", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
         else if (choice == Answer.NO)
            //YOUR CODE FOR NO HERE
            Toast.makeText(MainActivity.this, "YOU CHOSE NO", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();

}

and call your method in onClick()

like this:

        dlgAlert.setPositiveButton("OK",new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
            public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int whichButton) {
                userChose(Answer.YES);
            }
        });
        dlgAlert.setNegativeButton("Cancel", new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int which) {
                userChose(Answer.NO);
            }
        });