COMP 365 Android Development

 Manages access from a central database  Allows multiple applications to access the same data

 Each row is an instance of similar data. For example, if your database contains words, each row contains a different word.  Each column contains data related to an element. For the above example, the 3 rd column represents how many times each word is used.

 Implement the Android class ContentProvider  Require a means to store complex data/files that applications other than your content provider need access to  Require methods to search and sort a large amount of information  Need users to copy complex data from your database to other applications

 File Data  Organized data usually stored in files  Pictures, Audio and Video files.  Structured Data  Data stored in an “array” or “table” format  Each column represents an aspect of that data  Each row represents an element of data

 An SQLite database  An SQLite database API used to store tabular data  SQLiteOpenHelper class to create the database  SQLiteDatabase to access the database  File orientated data  Network-based data  Synchronizing data from a network source

 Content URI is the access point for content provider  Authority – the symbolic name of the provider  If the package name is “com.example.androidContentProvider”  The authority by convention will be “com.example.androidContentProvider.provider”

 Path – the pathname that points to a table or file in your content provider  By convention, the pathname to “table1” will be “com.example.androidContentProvider.provider/t able1”  Id – Optional, but can point to a specific row in a table.

 Perform additional operations on more than a single row  * : Matches a string of any valid characters of any length  # : Matches a string of numeric characters of any length  Use the UriMatcher.addURI() and UriMatcher.match(uri) methods to perform actions

 Abstract class  Query – implemented to return search requests from your provider. Must return a Cursor object.  Insert – inserts a new row(s) into your database.  Update – update a row(s) in your database.  Delete – delete one or more rows from your database.

 GetType – returns the MIME type of the element.  OnCreate – implements and creates your content provider on startup. This implementation may change depending on the ContentProvider or SQLiteOpenHelper classes.