I read a few articles on avoiding circular references this morning. And I just realized that in Android, if an Activity contains a Fragment, that Fragment should also hold a reference to the containing Activity. Isn't it setting up a circular reference?
I feel this might be a silly question, but asking silly questions is a good way to learn, isn't it?
The activity and Fragment has there own life cycles, there is no circular reference thing ,try to make your hands dirty with different Fragment and Activity Life cycles , you will come to know.
There's a useful discussion on the difference between Activity and Fragment which sheds some more light. The relationship between Activity and Fragment is such that a "Fragment" represents a behavior or a portion of user interface in an Activity. An Activity may contain 0 or multiple number of fragments (usually in two-pane views or Tablet UIs). You can read more on the subject from the official documentation here.
yes it's a circular reference but one that android manages by detaching the fragment from its host (therefore breaking the circular reference) before destroying, garbage collection can then occur.
