Best way to configure AsyncTask for use in autocomplete search

Issue

I am calling an AsyncTask in the onQueryTextChange method of a SearchView and displaying the results in a list. The searching works, but occasionally tends to hang for a second if the user types quickly in the searchview. I want to further optimize this approach. Since its an autocomplete Search, as the user starting typing, several AsyncTasks gets queued for execution. But I am only interested in the very last searchrequest.

Currently, I am doing something like this

if (myAsyncTask != null)
    myAsyncTask.cancel(true);

   myAsyncTask = new MyAsyncTask(context,URL);

Is there a better way to do this? I would like to do something like this, if possible

myAsyncTask.executeOnExecutor(new OptimizedExectionerService);

The OptimizedExectionerService class should cancel all pending and runnning tasks in the pool and ONLY process the last request that was made.

Solution

Use a handler with a reasonable delay (to handle typing into an edittext).

private static final int SEARCH_DELAY = 500;
private Handler mHandler = new Handler();
private SearchRunnable executeSearch = new SearchRunnable();

private queueSearch(String term) {
    // Remove any previous searches
    mHandler.removeCallbacks(executeSearch);

    // Set the search term for the runnable
    executeSearch.setSearchTerm(term);

    // Schedule the search in half a second
    mHandler.postDelayed(executeSearch, SEARCH_DELAY);
}

private class SearchRunnable implements Runnable {
    String searchTerm = null;

    public void setSearchTerm(String term) {
        searchTerm = term;
    }

    @Override
    public void run() {
         //Execute Search here
         new MyAsyncTask(context, searchTerm);
    }
};

Answered By - jt-gilkeson