Passing Parcelable/Serializable vs Passing object's data members

Question

I'm trying to figure out what is the most efficient way to pass an object from one activity to another in android. I read I can extend an object as Parcelable or Serializable, and it seems like Parcelable is the clear winner in terms of performance.

Now I just thought of a different way. Instead of extending any class, I'll put all my data variables into a bundle, pass those data, and reconstruct the object. For example:

public class myObject {
   // Data Variables
   private String str1;
   private String str2;
   private boolean bool1;

   // Constructor
   public myObject(String str1, String str2, boolean bool1){
      this.str1 = str1;
      this.str2 = str2;
      this.bool1 = bool1;
   }
}

Now I'll just pass the variables:

Intent i = new Intent();
i.setClass(ActOne.this, ActTwo.class);
Bundle bundle = new Bundle();
bundle.putString("KEY_STR1", str1);
bundle.putString("KEY_STR2", str2);
bundle.putBoolean("KEY_BOOL1", bool1);
startActivity(i);

In the ActTwo class, I'll get the data from the intent and reconstruct my object:

myObject newObjHolder = new myObject(str1, str2, bool1);

How does this way compare to passing a Parcelable? Faster? Slower? Barely any difference?

it the same thing. Internally you write and read In/from the parcel object. — Blackbelt, Sep 11 '14 at 16:36
To add another method, if you are sharing the same objects between many Activities, you may want to look at using a singleton approach rather than passing them. — Dan Harms, Sep 11 '14 at 16:37
singleton has problems with state non-determinism. hence, you may find spooky... indeterminable outputs from class methods. — bhowden, Sep 11 '14 at 16:41

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 11 '14 at 16:40

if you look a bit closer you'll see that Bundle is just a Parcelable anyway. So probably you're looking into a couple but very very small, miliseconds less efficient to do that way you're suggesting.

I'll tell you why: Parcelables has to write in a Parcel and you're writting in a Bundle, then this Bundle will write it to the Parcel. So you do add some overhead, but probably you can do a test similar to the link pointed by @bhowden and see that it will be very small.

So then you have to decide if you prefer the easy of code of Bundle or the speed of Parcelable.

Passing Parcelable/Serializable vs Passing object's data members

1 Answers1