Android Question Weird behaviour when re-initialising a class

[CaptKronos]

I have been using B4A for several years but have never noticed the following behaviour before.

If a class with a timer is initialised multiple times, the timer seems to be duplicated on each call to the class' Initialize sub. The following B4XMainPage initialises such a class every time Button1 is clicked:

Sub Class_Globals
    Private Root As B4XView
    Private aClassWithTimer As classWithTimer
    Private cnt As Int=1
End Sub

Public Sub Initialize
End Sub

Private Sub B4XPage_Created (Root1 As B4XView)
    Root = Root1
    Root.LoadLayout("MainPage")
End Sub

Private Sub Button1_Click
    aClassWithTimer.Initialize
    aClassWithTimer.Message="Button clicked " & cnt & " times"
    cnt=cnt+1
End Sub

ClassWithTimer:

Sub Class_Globals
    Public logMessage As Timer
    Public theMessage As String
End Sub

Public Sub Initialize
    logMessage.Initialize("logMessage", 3000)
    logMessage.Enabled=True
End Sub

public Sub setMessage(msg As String)
    theMessage=msg
End Sub

Sub logMessage_Tick
    Log(DateTime.Time(DateTime.Now) & "  " & theMessage)
End Sub

The following is the output from the above. As expected, on first clicking the Button an event is generated every 4 seconds. However, clicking the Button again results in an event, roughly, every 2 seconds. The more the clicks, the more frequent the events.
It would seem that each time the class is initialised, a new instance of the class is created and the previous instance is orphaned. I had always thought that re-initialising a class instance would just "reset" that instance of the class, rather than create a new instance. Assuming my new understanding is correct, is there a way to destroy the current instance before re-initialising? Of course, the work around is only ever to initialise an instance once.

09:35:45  Button clicked 1 times
09:35:49  Button clicked 1 times
09:35:53  Button clicked 1 times
09:35:57  Button clicked 1 times
09:36:01  Button clicked 1 times
09:36:05  Button clicked 2 times
09:36:06  Button clicked 2 times
09:36:09  Button clicked 2 times
09:36:10  Button clicked 2 times
09:36:13  Button clicked 2 times
09:36:14  Button clicked 2 times
09:36:17  Button clicked 3 times
09:36:18  Button clicked 3 times
09:36:19  Button clicked 3 times
09:36:21  Button clicked 3 times
09:36:22  Button clicked 3 times
09:36:23  Button clicked 3 times
09:36:25  Button clicked 3 times
09:36:26  Button clicked 3 times
09:36:27  Button clicked 3 times
09:36:29  Button clicked 4 times
09:36:30  Button clicked 4 times
09:36:31  Button clicked 4 times
09:36:33  Button clicked 4 times
09:36:33  Button clicked 4 times
09:36:34  Button clicked 4 times
09:36:35  Button clicked 4 times
09:36:37  Button clicked 4 times
09:36:37  Button clicked 4 times

 

[Erel]

It is not related to the class being reinitialized. It is related to the timer being reinitialized. It will cause the effect you describe.

 

[CaptKronos]

Thanks. Is it possible to destroy the timer?

 

[stevel05]

You could stop the timer before reinitializing the class. If the initialization doesn't do anything else, it may be simpler just to reset the count without reinitializing the class.

 

[CaptKronos]

Once I realised what was happening I was able to quite quickly fix the problem in my project by only initialising the classes once. Previously, I had been re-initialising the classes as a shorthand for resetting their values. As you suggest, Steve, I did try disabling the timers before re-initialising the classes but sometimes they seemed to magically restart themselves but I might have imagined that bit! I decided it would be easier just to initialise once.