Beginning Android™ Application Development

Chapter 7. Content Providers

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS CHAPTER

• What are content providers?

• How to use a content provider in Android

• How to create your own content provider

• How to use your own content provider

In the previous chapter, you learned about the various ways to persist data — using shared preferences, files, as well as SQLite databases. While using the database approach is the recommended way to save structured and complex data, sharing data is a challenge because the database is accessible to only the package that created it.

In this chapter, you will learn Android's way of sharing data through the use of content providers. You will learn how to use the built-in content providers, as well as implement your own content providers to share data across packages.

SHARING DATA IN ANDROID

In Android, using a content provider is the recommended way to share data across packages. Think of a content provider as a data store. How it stores its data is not relevant to the application using it; what is important is how packages can access the data stored in it using a consistent programming interface. A content provider behaves very much like a database — you can query it, edit its content, as well as add or delete its content. However, unlike a database, a content provider can use different ways to store its data. The data can be stored in a database, in files, or even over a network.

Android ships with many useful content providers, including the following:

• Browser — Stores data such as ...