Android schedule PeriodicWorkRequest only for n times

Question

Android Periodic work will run periodically but i need to schedule a task for n time. Suppose i want to run a task every day for 20 days only. I didn't find any way to do that.

How can i do that?

Answer 1

The offered API allows to cancel a work unconditionally:

If you no longer need your previously enqueued work to run, you can ask for it to be cancelled. Work can be cancelled by its name, id or by a tag associated with it.

But you can use your favorite storage to tack the number of days until they reach to 20 days. And every time the work is performed; i.e. when the doWork() callback gets called; you can increment the no. of days.

Here's an example of SharedPreference:

public static final String WORK_TAG = "WORK_TAG";
public static final String DAY_NO = "DAY_NO";

@androidx.annotation.NonNull
@Override
public Result doWork() {

    SharedPreferences prefs = getApplicationContext().getSharedPreferences("prefs", MODE_PRIVATE);
    int dayNo = prefs.getInt(DAY_NO, 1);
    
    if (dayNo == 23) {
        // cancel the work
        WorkManager.getInstance(getApplicationContext()).cancelAllWorkByTag(WORK_TAG);
        Log.d(TAG, "The periodic work has been stopped");

    } else {
        // Increment the number of days
        dayNo++;
        SharedPreferences.Editor editor = prefs.edit();
        editor.putInt("DAY_NO", dayNo);
        editor.apply();

        // Do your work here
        
    }

    return Result.success();

}

Make sure that you tag the work with the same tag when you initialize the workRequest:

PeriodicWorkRequest workRequest = new PeriodicWorkRequest.Builder(
        MyWorkerclass.class, // Worker class
        .......
        .addTag(WORK_TAG)
        .build();

Also notice that any other work with the same tag will be cancelled as well, so make sure it's a unique tag.