Intent.setData vs Intent.putExtra

Question

I'm trying to follow this tutorial:

http://www.vogella.com/articles/AndroidCalendar/article.html

I understand what putExtra does

but I fail to understand what setData() means?

Android Docs, wasn't much helpful:

Set the data this intent is operating on.

what does this mean for the constant

intent.setData(CalendarContract.Events.CONTENT_URI); ?

There doesn't seem to be any affect when I comment out this line.

Answer 1

setData() is used to point to the location of a data object (like a file for example), while putExtra() adds simple data types (such as an SMS text string for example).

Here are two examples to clarify:

setData() used here to set the location of a file that you want to share.

File fileToShare = new File("/sdcard/somefile.dat"); Intent i = new Intent(); i.setAction(Intent.ACTION_SEND); i.setData(Uri.fromFile(fileToShare)); startActivity(i); 

putExtra() is used here to set the text content that you want to share.

Intent i = new Intent(); i.setAction(Intent.ACTION_SEND); String textBodyString = "some text"; i.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, textBodyString); i.setType(HTTP.PLAIN_TEXT_TYPE); 

For more information I suggest some readings about Intents and the setData(), setType() and setDataAndType()