Android - Intercepting SMS messages and consuming it

Sometimes we have to send messages to our Android apps through SMS messages.
So we have to write a SMS receiver to receive the message. After handling the message, we can decide if we want to allow the SMS message to be displayed in the inbox of the default messaging client or not.

To acheive this, we need to do the following:

1. Add an extra permission to receive the incoming SMS message
2. Declare our SMS receiver in the AndroidManifest xml file
3. Writing a SMS receiver class to handle received messages
4. Decide if we have to showup the message in the default messaging client

Permissions needed

 android.permission.RECEIVE_SMS  

Adding receiver to Android Manifest
Add the sms receiver class to your manifest. If you want your app to handle the SMS message before any other app, then set the priority to the maximum: 999
Setting the maximum priority also comes with added responsibility. You can actually mess up other SMS messages that you dont want to handle from reaching the messaging app.

Add the following lines to AndroidManifest.xml

           <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.RECEIVE_SMS" />  
   
     <receiver android:name=".MySMSReceiver">        
        <intent-filter android:priority="999">   
             <action android:name="android.provider.Telephony.SMS_RECEIVED" />  
           </intent-filter>  
     </receiver>  
   

Receiver code
The MySMSReceiver class should extend the BroadcastReceiver and override the onReceive() method
Assuming the app package is com.test.myapp, add this code to MySMSReceiver.java

 package com.test.myapp;  
   
 import android.content.BroadcastReceiver;  
 import android.content.Context;  
 import android.content.Intent;  
 import android.os.Bundle;  
 import android.telephony.gsm.SmsMessage;  
 import android.widget.Toast;  
   
 public class MySMSReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {  
   
      @Override  
      public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {  
           String smsData = null;  
   
           if (intent.getAction().equals(android.provider.Telephony.SMS_RECEIVED)) {  
                  
                Bundle pudsBundle = intent.getExtras();  
              Object[] pdus = (Object[]) pudsBundle.get("pdus");  
              SmsMessage messages =SmsMessage.createFromPdu((byte[]) pdus[0]);       
              smsData = messages.getMessageBody();  
                     
                // now smsData has the actual SMS message  
                // Add code to handle the message  
   
           }  
      }  
 }  

Now using the above code, you can intercept the SMS messages.
This will also allow the default messaging client to receive the same SMS message and display it in the Inbox.
What if you want to consume the message and not show it in the messaging app?
Just call abortBroadcast()

 
 public class MySMSReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {

 @Override
 public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
  String smsData = null;
  boolean bHandled = false;
  
  if (intent.getAction().equals(android.provider.Telephony.SMS_RECEIVED)) {
   
   Bundle pudsBundle = intent.getExtras();
      Object[] pdus = (Object[]) pudsBundle.get("pdus");
      SmsMessage messages =SmsMessage.createFromPdu((byte[]) pdus[0]);         
      smsData = messages.getMessageBody();
        
   // now smsData has the actual SMS message
   // Add code to handle the message
   // If this message should be aborted set bHandled = true
   
      if (bHandled) {
    abortBroadcast();
   }  
  }
 }
}