The Tasks API

Starting with Google Play services version 9.0.0, you can use a Task API and a number of methods that return Task or its subclasses. Task is an API that represents asynchronous method calls, similar to PendingResult in previous versions of Google Play services.

Handling task results

A common method that returns a Task is FirebaseAuth.signInAnonymously(). It returns a Task<AuthResult> which means the task will return an AuthResult object when it succeeds:

Task<AuthResult> task = FirebaseAuth.getInstance().signInAnonymously();

To be notified when the task succeeds, attach an OnSuccessListener:

task.addOnSuccessListener(new OnSuccessListener<AuthResult>() {
    @Override
    public void onSuccess(AuthResult authResult) {
        // Task completed successfully
        // ...
    }
});

To be notified when the task fails, attach an OnFailureListener:

task.addOnFailureListener(new OnFailureListener() {
    @Override
    public void onFailure(@NonNull Exception e) {
        // Task failed with an exception
        // ...
    }
});

To handle success and failure in the same listener, attach an OnCompleteListener:

task.addOnCompleteListener(new OnCompleteListener<AuthResult>() {
    @Override
    public void onComplete(@NonNull Task<AuthResult> task) {
        if (task.isSuccessful()) {
            // Task completed successfully
            AuthResult result = task.getResult();
        } else {
            // Task failed with an exception
            Exception exception = task.getException();
        }
    }
});

Threading

Listeners attached to a thread are run on the application main (UI) thread by default. When attaching a listener, you can also specify an Executor that is used to schedule listeners.

// Create a new ThreadPoolExecutor with 2 threads for each processor on the
// device and a 60 second keep-alive time.
int numCores = Runtime.getRuntime().availableProcessors();
ThreadPoolExecutor executor = new ThreadPoolExecutor(numCores * 2, numCores *2,
        60L, TimeUnit.SECONDS, new LinkedBlockingQueue<Runnable>());

task.addOnCompleteListener(executor, new OnCompleteListener<AuthResult>() {
    @Override
    public void onComplete(@NonNull Task<AuthResult> task) {
        // ...
    }
});

Activity-scoped listeners

If you are listening for task results in an Activity, you may want to add activity-scoped listeners to the task. These listeners are removed during the onStop method of your Activity so that your listeners are not called when the Activity is no longer visible.

Activity activity = MainActivity.this;
task.addOnCompleteListener(activity, new OnCompleteListener<AuthResult>() {
    @Override
    public void onComplete(@NonNull Task<AuthResult> task) {
        // ...
    }
});

Chaining

If you use multiple APIs that return Task, you can chain them together using a continuation. This helps avoid deeply nested callbacks and consolidates error handling for chains of tasks.

For example, the method doSomething returns a Task<String> but requires an AuthResult, which we will get asynchronously from a task:

public Task<String> doSomething(AuthResult authResult) {
    // ...
}

Using the Task.continueWithTask method, we can chain these two tasks:

Task<AuthResult> signInTask = FirebaseAuth.getInstance().signInAnonymously();

signInTask.continueWithTask(new Continuation<AuthResult, Task<String>>() {
    @Override
    public Task<String> then(@NonNull Task<AuthResult> task) throws Exception {
        // Take the result from the first task and start the second one
        AuthResult result = task.getResult();
        return doSomething(result);
    }
}).addOnSuccessListener(new OnSuccessListener<String>() {
    @Override
    public void onSuccess(String s) {
        // Chain of tasks completed successfully, got result from last task.
        // ...
    }
}).addOnFailureListener(new OnFailureListener() {
    @Override
    public void onFailure(@NonNull Exception e) {
        // One of the tasks in the chain failed with an exception.
        // ...
    }
});

Blocking

If your program is already executing in a background thread you can block a task to get the result synchronously and avoid callbacks:

try {
    // Block on a task and get the result synchronously. This is generally done
    // when executing a task inside a separately managed background thread. Doing this
    // on the main (UI) thread can cause your application to become unresponsive.
    AuthResult authResult = Tasks.await(task);
} catch (ExecutionException e) {
    // The Task failed, this is the same exception you'd get in a non-blocking
    // failure handler.
    // ...
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
    // An interrupt occurred while waiting for the task to complete.
    // ...
}

You can also specify a timeout when blocking a task so that your application does not hang:

try {
    // Block on the task for a maximum of 500 milliseconds, otherwise time out.
    AuthResult authResult = Tasks.await(task, 500, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
} catch (ExecutionException e) {
    // ...
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
    // ...
} catch (TimeoutException e) {
    // Task timed out before it could complete.
    // ...
}

Interoperability

A Task aligns conceptually to several popular Android approaches to managing asynchronous code, and a Task can be straightforwardly converted to other primitives, including the ListenableFuture and Kotlin coroutines, which are recommended by AndroidX.

Here's an example using a Task:

// ...
simpleTask.addOnCompleteListener(this) {
  completedTask -> textView.text = completedTask.result
}
MainActivity.kt

Kotlin Coroutine

Usage

Add the following dependency to your project and use the code below to convert from a Task.

Gradle (module-level build.gradle, usually app/build.gradle)
// Source: https://github.com/Kotlin/kotlinx.coroutines/tree/master/integration/kotlinx-coroutines-play-services
implementation 'org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-play-services:1.7.3'
build.gradle
Snippet
import kotlinx.coroutines.tasks.await
// ...
  textView.text = simpleTask.await()
}
MainActivity.kt

Guava ListenableFuture

Add the following dependency to your project and use the code below to convert from a Task.

Gradle (module-level build.gradle, usually app/build.gradle)
implementation "androidx.concurrent:concurrent-futures:1.2.0"
build.gradle
Snippet
import com.google.common.util.concurrent.ListenableFuture
// ...
/** Convert Task to ListenableFuture. */
fun <T> taskToListenableFuture(task: Task<T>): ListenableFuture<T> {
  return CallbackToFutureAdapter.getFuture { completer ->
    task.addOnCompleteListener { completedTask ->
      if (completedTask.isCanceled) {
        completer.setCancelled()
      } else if (completedTask.isSuccessful) {
        completer.set(completedTask.result)
      } else {
        val e = completedTask.exception
        if (e != null) {
          completer.setException(e)
        } else {
          throw IllegalStateException()
        }
      }
    }
  }
}
// ...
this.listenableFuture = taskToListenableFuture(simpleTask)
this.listenableFuture?.addListener(
  Runnable {
    textView.text = listenableFuture?.get()
  },
  ContextCompat.getMainExecutor(this)
)
MainActivity.kt

RxJava2 Observable

Add the following dependency, in addition to the relative async library of choice, to your project and use the code below to convert from a Task.

Gradle (module-level build.gradle, usually app/build.gradle)
// Source: https://github.com/ashdavies/rx-tasks
implementation 'io.ashdavies.rx.rxtasks:rx-tasks:2.2.0'
build.gradle
Snippet
import io.ashdavies.rx.rxtasks.toSingle
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit
// ...
simpleTask.toSingle(this).subscribe { result -> textView.text = result }
MainActivity.kt

Next steps