Is it a bad practice to hold application Context instance?
android, android-context, design-patterns
Solution
is it a bad practice to save the application Context in my Application class?
It is a code smell.
Can it lead to a massive memory leak?
Having the static data member will not lead to a massive memory leak. Whether your over-use of the `Application` object will lead to a massive memory leak depends upon where and how you use it.
What are the drawbacks I'm not seeing?
Not all `Context`s are created equal. Generally speaking, only use `Application` when you know specifically why you need the `Application` context, not for everything.
Dave Smith of DoubleEncore has an awesome blog post covering the differences between types of `Context` and when to use one over another.
Problem
From my understanding, Application in Android is a singleton (correct me if I'm wrong) and we always have just one application Context instance. So, from this perspective, is it a bad practice to save the application Context in my Application class? Can it lead to a massive memory leak? Here is an example: ``` public class MyApp extends Application { private static Context appContext = null; // <-- here is the thing! @Override public void onCreate() { appContext = this; } public static Context getApplicationContextSingleton () { return MyApp.appContext; } } ``` The reason to do this is globally accessed classes, like PreferencesManager, that mostly have static methods always need a context. So, instead of passing it everytime (or even storing it in an instance, which can be bad), I thought about storing the app context. What are the drawbacks I'm not seeing?