Why does AccountManager.invalidateAuthToken requires AccountType instead of AccountName?

Question

When invalidating authorized tokens from AccountManager using invalidateAuthToken,

Q1: Why does the function requires the Type of the account when using the Name of the account seems to make more sense?

Q2: By giving it the Type, does invalidateAuthToken wipe out all auth tokens under that account type?

Answer 1

Q1: type is not as restrictive as name, it implicitly indicates that you are dealing with a group and not an individual, IMHO.

accountType defines what type of account you are fetching in the accountManager. for example: "www.google" for google accounts. given a bundle inside a callback, you find out the accountType by using:

private class GetAuthTokenCallback implements AccountManagerCallback<Bundle> {
    public void run(AccountManagerFuture<Bundle> result) {
        try {
           bundle = result.getResult();
           String auth_token = bundle.getString(AccountManager.KEY_AUTHTOKEN);
           String auth_account_type = bundle.getString(AccountManager.KEY_ACCOUNT_TYPE);

Q2: according to the developers guide, the syntax is:

public void invalidateAuthToken (String accountType, String authToken)

accountType must NOT be null, but authToken may be null. if you omit authToken, you clear all tokens for that accountType