The newInstance pattern

suggest change

Although it is possible to create a fragment constructor with parameters, Android internally calls the zero-argument constructor when recreating fragments (for example, if they are being restored after being killed for Android’s own reasons). For this reason, it is not advisable to rely on a constructor that has parameters.

To ensure that your expected fragment arguments are always present you can use a static newInstance() method to create the fragment, and put whatever parameters you want in to a bundle that will be available when creating a new instance.

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v4.app.Fragment;

public class MyFragment extends Fragment
{
  // Our identifier for obtaining the name from arguments
  private static final String NAME_ARG = "name";

  private String mName;

  // Required
  public MyFragment(){}

  // The static constructor.  This is the only way that you should instantiate
  // the fragment yourself
  public static MyFragment newInstance(final String name) {
    final MyFragment myFragment = new MyFragment();
    // The 1 below is an optimization, being the number of arguments that will
    // be added to this bundle.  If you know the number of arguments you will add
    // to the bundle it stops additional allocations of the backing map.  If
    // unsure, you can construct Bundle without any arguments
    final Bundle args = new Bundle(1);

    // This stores the argument as an argument in the bundle.  Note that even if
    // the 'name' parameter is NULL then this will work, so you should consider
    // at this point if the parameter is mandatory and if so check for NULL and
    // throw an appropriate error if so
    args.putString(NAME_ARG, name);

    myFragment.setArguments(args);
    return myFragment;
  }

  @Override
  public void onCreate(final Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    final Bundle arguments = getArguments();
    if (arguments == null || !arguments.containsKey(NAME_ARG)) {
      // Set a default or error as you see fit
    } else {
      mName = arguments.getString(NAME_ARG);
    }
  }
}

Now, in the Activity:

FragmentTransaction ft = getSupportFragmentManager().beginTransaction();
MyFragment mFragment = MyFragment.newInstance("my name");
ft.replace(R.id.placeholder, mFragment);
//R.id.placeholder is where we want to load our fragment
ft.commit();

This pattern is a best practice to ensure that all the needed arguments will be passed to fragments on creation. Note that when the system destroys the fragment and re-creates it later, it will automatically restore its state - but you must provide it with an onSaveInstanceState(Bundle) implementation.

Found a mistake? Have a question or improvement idea? Let me know.

Table Of Contents