The following message Handler works fine receiving messages from my service...

private  Handler handler = new Handler() 
{

    public void handleMessage(Message message) 
    {
        Object path = message.obj;

        if (message.arg1 == 5 && path != null)  //5 means its a single mapleg to plot on the map
        {
            String myString = (String) message.obj;
            Gson gson = new Gson();
            MapPlot mapleg = gson.fromJson(myString, MapPlot.class);
            myMapView.getOverlays().add(new DirectionPathOverlay(mapleg.fromPoint, mapleg.toPoint));
            mc.animateTo(mapleg.toPoint);

        }
        else
        {
            if (message.arg1 == RESULT_OK && path != null) 
            {
                Toast.makeText(PSActivity.this, "Service Started" + path.toString(), Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
            } 
            else 
            {
                Toast.makeText(PSActivity.this,"Service error" + String.valueOf(message.arg1),  Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();          


            }

        }
    };
};

However, even though it tests out alright in the AVD (I'm feeding it a large KML file via DDMS) the "object path = message.obj;" line has a WARNING saying "this Handler class should be static else leaks might occur".

But if I say "static Handler handler = new Handler()" it won't compile complaining that I "cannot make a static reference to a non-static field myMapView. If I can't make such references, I can't do anything useful.

This led me into several hours of googling around on this issue and learning more about weakReferences than I ever wanted to know. The often found reccomendation I find is that I should replace...

private Handler handler = new Handler()

with

   static class handler extends Handler
{
    private final WeakReference<PSActivity> mTarget;
    handler(PSActivity target)
    {
        mTarget = new WeakReference<PSActivity>(target);
    }

But this won't compile still complaining that I can't make a static reference to a non-dtatic field. So, my question a week or to ago was "how can I write a message handler for android so my service can send data to my activity. Even though I have working code, the question still stands with the suffix "without leaking memory". Thanks, Gary