Deep links in Android Kotlin - Practice Problems & Coding Challenges

Challenge - 5 Problems

❓ ui_behavior

intermediate

What happens when a deep link is triggered?

Consider an Android app with a deep link configured to open a specific screen. What is the expected behavior when the deep link URL is clicked?

A The app opens the home screen of the device instead of the app.

B The app opens the launcher screen first, then navigates to the specified screen after a delay.

C The app opens directly to the specified screen without showing the launcher or home screen.

D The app crashes because deep links are not supported by default.

💡 Hint

Think about what deep links are designed to do: take users straight to content.

Deep links allow an app to open directly to a specific screen or content when a URL is clicked, bypassing the launcher or home screen.

🧠 Conceptual

intermediate

Which AndroidManifest.xml element defines a deep link?

In Android development, which element inside the AndroidManifest.xml file is used to declare a deep link for an activity?

A <meta-data> with the deep link URI inside

B <service> with <intent-filter> specifying the deep link URI

C <provider> with <data> specifying the deep link URI

D <intent-filter> with <action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW"/> and <data> specifying the URI

💡 Hint

Deep links are triggered by intents targeting activities.

Deep links are declared inside an of an activity with action VIEW and data URI patterns.

❓ lifecycle

advanced

What lifecycle method is called when an activity is opened via a deep link?

When an Android activity is opened through a deep link while the app is already running, which lifecycle method is called to handle the new intent?

A onNewIntent(Intent intent)

B onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)

C onStart()

D onResume()

💡 Hint

Think about how Android delivers new intents to existing activities.

If the activity is already running, Android calls onNewIntent() to deliver the new deep link intent.

🔧 Debug

advanced

Why does this deep link not open the app?

An app has this intent filter in AndroidManifest.xml: Clicking the URL http://example.com/open/page does not open the app. Why?

A The pathPrefix matches "/open" and all subpaths, so the problem is elsewhere.

B The intent filter is missing the android:port attribute, so it won't match URLs with ports.

C The app is not installed, so the deep link cannot open it.

D The pathPrefix "/open" does not match "/open/page" because pathPrefix matches only the exact path.

💡 Hint

Check how pathPrefix matching works in Android deep links.

The pathPrefix attribute matches the specified prefix and any subpaths, so "/open/page" matches "/open" prefix.

❓ navigation

expert

How to handle multiple deep links with different parameters in one activity?

You want one activity to handle deep links like myapp://product/123 and myapp://category/456. How should you configure the intent filter and handle navigation in Kotlin?

Android Kotlin

override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
  super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
  val data = intent?.data
  when {
    data?.pathSegments?.getOrNull(0) == "product" -> {
      val productId = data.pathSegments[1]
      // Navigate to product screen with productId
    }
    data?.pathSegments?.getOrNull(0) == "category" -> {
      val categoryId = data.pathSegments[1]
      // Navigate to category screen with categoryId
    }
  }
}

A Create separate activities for product and category and separate intent filters for each URI pattern.

B Use one intent filter with <data android:scheme="myapp" /> and parse pathSegments in onCreate to route accordingly.

C Use multiple intent filters with different schemes for product and category URIs.

D Handle deep links only in the launcher activity and ignore intent filters.

💡 Hint

One activity can handle multiple deep link paths by parsing the URI.

A single intent filter with scheme 'myapp' can handle all deep links; inside the activity, parse the URI path to navigate.