Saving Multiple Images in SQLite

Question

Hi in my project I have a Search bar in which the user will type an animal name and my application will display the an animated picture of that animal(.gif). Im currently saving the paths of the image in my SQLite database. There are two questions which I have

a) My database currently comprises of just 1 image how can I expand it, do I have to write the code again for each image file?

b) How will the search work? will it search the image by name or do I have to make another Column for image tag and then search by it.

Here's my code:

import android.app.Activity;
import android.content.ContentValues;
import android.content.Context;
import android.database.Cursor;
import android.database.sqlite.SQLiteDatabase;
import android.graphics.Bitmap;
import android.graphics.BitmapFactory;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.ImageView;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.IOException;

public class ImageDatabase extends Activity{

private ImageView mImageView;
private SQLiteDatabase db;

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState){

    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    mImageView = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.image_view);
    db = openOrCreateDatabase("Image.db", Context.MODE_PRIVATE, null);
    db.execSQL("Create Table if not exists tb (a blob)");
}

public void  saveImage(View view){

    try {
        FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream("/storage/sdcard/gif_file.gif");
        byte[] image = new byte[fis.available()];
        fis.read(image);

        ContentValues values = new ContentValues();
        values.put("a", image);
        db.insert("ImageTable", null, values);

        fis.close();
    }
    catch (IOException e){
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

}
public void  getImage(View view){

    Cursor c = db.rawQuery("select = from tb", null);

    if (c.moveToNext()){
        byte[] image = c.getBlob(0);
        Bitmap bmp = BitmapFactory.decodeByteArray(image, 0, image.length);
        mImageView.setImageBitmap(bmp);
    }

}

}

Answer 1

a) My database currently comprises of just 1 image how can I expand it, do I have to write the code again for each image file?

Of course not, in your method that save the image, saveImage, you can pass the path of the image to save as a parameter, to make it general. FileInputStream will not have an hardcoded value but it will use this parameter. Something like this:

public void saveImage(String filePath) {
    try {
        FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(filePath);
        ...
    }
}

Of course do some checks to the path or manage the exception properly. I don't know the architecture of your application, please do not store the actual image in the database, but a TEXT with the path of the image.

Also, it looks like you are not using the View view parameter in the method, so you can remove it.

b) How will the search work? will it search the image by name or do I have to make another Column for image tag and then search by it.

It depends on your application: if it's possible for the users to add tags to an image or maybe the application does it automatically (i.e. a category also), then you can give the tag search possibility to the user, otherwise not. So you will simply search by name: please consider a file can have any name, completely unrelated to the actual content of the image, so you better think about another strategy to improve your search functionality.