What happens with threads spawned by an IntentService when IntentService finishes?

Question

I have an IntentService which receives data and writes it into a local DB. Then the DB data is to be processed. Currently I am doing it all in the onHandleIntent() method.

Problem: Data is not stored immediately in DB. But it should be. Instead next data block is processed after first has finished.

Data blocks are to be processed synchronously.

My solution ideas:

1) I could use a Service instead of IntentService. However, I want to avoid that because I want to avoid handling the async stuff.

2) I could use two IntentServices: The first accepts the data and stores it. The second reads it and processes it.

3) I could spawn a WorkerThread (or use an ExecutorService) to process the data. This is the way I would like to go.

Now, my question: What happens to the thread spawned by the IntentService when the IntentService leaves its onHandleIntent() method? Are there any problems to be expected? Should rather use option 2) or 1)?

Answer 1

Threads spawned from IntentService are bonded to the lifetime of the IntentService object (pid).

If the processing should be synchronous exclusively, you should go with option 2.