Saving Array on Orientation Change

Question

I am very new to Java/Android Development/programming. Recently I am working on tutorials from book, and trying to solve problems outside the scope of text. I ran into problems.

On orientation change, I wish to saved an array of string and boolean using onSaveInstanceState, and.. well, I don't know how. The putArray seems to be only available for one type of data (putIntArray, putBooleanArray, etc), and I'm at lost as to how I can solve this problem.

The array I'm trying to save:

    private static TrueFalse[] mQuestionBank =  new TrueFalse[]{
        new TrueFalse(R.string.question_oceans, true, false),
        new TrueFalse(R.string.question_africa, false, false),
        new TrueFalse(R.string.question_america, true, false),
        new TrueFalse(R.string.question_mideast, false, false),
        new TrueFalse(R.string.question_asia, true, false),
};

Is there a simple option? What are my choices?

Answer 1

First, make sure your TrueFalse class implements Serializable.

Then you can put the array onSaveInstanceState(), and retrive it onRestoreInstanceState()

@Override
protected void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle outState) {
    outState.putSerializable("my_array", mQuestionBank);
    super.onSaveInstanceState(outState);
}

@Override
protected void onRestoreInstanceState(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    mQuestionBank = savedInstanceState.getSerializable("my_array");
    super.onRestoreInstanceState(savedInstanceState);
}

Answer 2

Your TrueFalse class needs to implement the Parcelable interface. Once you've done that, I believe you can use savedInstanceState.putExtra(String key,Parcelable[] yourArray)

You can also implement Serializable but, from what I've heard, there are some performance issues.