# 4.2 Lifecycle of a Fragment

The lifecycle of a fragment is also the same as that of an activity; the only difference is that a fragment’s lifecycle is tied to the activity that it’s hosted in. This means that the activity’s lifecycle events can affect the fragment, but not vice versa. For example, if an activity is destroyed, all the fragments hosted in that activity will also be destroyed; however, you can freely add and destroy individual fragments without directly disrupting the parent activity.

Generally the three major lifecycle methods that are implemented for a fragment are 

* `onCreate()`
  * `onCreate()` is called when the fragment is just being created and most of the initialization will occur here.
* `onCreateView()`
  * `onCreateView()` is called when the system is first drawing the UI for the fragment.
* `onPause()`
  * Finally, `onPause()` is called if the user is leaving the fragment, and can only happen when the `onPause()` of the parent activity is called as well (ie. when the user closes or leaves the activity). If you want to save changes your user made, you would want to do this in `onPause()`.

  


---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://android-course.cornellappdev.com/archive/archived-native-android-textbook-pages/5.-fragments/5.2-lifecycle-of-a-fragment.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.