Android - Connecting to MySQL database

Question

I have been trying out the tutorials shown on various websites on connecting a MySQL database to android. At the moment the code below, takes the values which you hard code in, (i.e year=2005 and name=tom) and runs it through the php script. What I would like know is how I can modify this, so that it takes the values of what the user enters in a textbox instead.

 package com.test;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.util.ArrayList;

import org.apache.http.HttpEntity;
import org.apache.http.HttpResponse;
import org.apache.http.NameValuePair;
import org.apache.http.client.HttpClient;
import org.apache.http.client.entity.UrlEncodedFormEntity;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpPost;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultHttpClient;
import org.apache.http.message.BasicNameValuePair;
import org.json.JSONArray;
import org.json.JSONException;
import org.json.JSONObject;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.util.Log;
import android.widget.LinearLayout;
import android.widget.TextView;


public class test extends Activity {
/** Called when the activity is first created. */

   TextView txt;
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.main);
    // Create a crude view - this should really be set via the layout resources 
    // but since its an example saves declaring them in the XML. 
    LinearLayout rootLayout = new LinearLayout(getApplicationContext()); 
    txt = new TextView(getApplicationContext()); 
    rootLayout.addView(txt); 
    setContentView(rootLayout); 

    // Set the text and call the connect function. 
    txt.setText("Connecting...");
  //call the method to run the data retrieval
    txt.setText(getServerData(KEY_121));



}
public static final String KEY_121 = "http://***.****.com/mysqlcon.php"; //i use my real ip here



private String getServerData(String returnString) {

   InputStream is = null;

   String result = "";
    //the year data to send
    ArrayList<NameValuePair> nameValuePairs = new ArrayList<NameValuePair>();
    nameValuePairs.add(new BasicNameValuePair("year","2005"));
    nameValuePairs.add(new BasicNameValuePair("name","tom"));

    //http post
    try{
            HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();
            HttpPost httppost = new HttpPost(KEY_121);
            httppost.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(nameValuePairs));
            HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httppost);
            HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity();
            is = entity.getContent();

    }catch(Exception e){
            Log.e("log_tag", "Error in http connection "+e.toString());
    }

    //convert response to string
    try{
            BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is,"iso-8859-1"),8);
            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
            String line = null;
            while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
                    sb.append(line + "\n");
            }
            is.close();
            result=sb.toString();
    }catch(Exception e){
            Log.e("log_tag", "Error converting result "+e.toString());
    }
    //parse json data
    try{
            JSONArray jArray = new JSONArray(result);
            for(int i=0;i<jArray.length();i++){
                    JSONObject json_data = jArray.getJSONObject(i);
                    Log.i("log_tag","id: "+json_data.getInt("id")+
                            ", name: "+json_data.getString("name")+
                            ", sex: "+json_data.getInt("sex")+
                            ", birthyear: "+json_data.getInt("birthyear")
                    );
                    //Get an output to the screen
                    returnString += "\n\t" + jArray.getJSONObject(i);
            }
    }catch(JSONException e){
            Log.e("log_tag", "Error parsing data "+e.toString());
    }
    return returnString;
}   

}

You shouldn't allow client-side android applications to access a general mysql database. It would be easily possible to get the credentials out of the application and access the database directly allowing users to do anything with the database. Instead you should create a public API that supports a fixed set of operations you need to make your application work. — poke, Jan 16 '11 at 19:56
@poke - I understand that this is not the best way of doing it, but i am just getting to learn the java language, so started with the basic tutorials available on the web. — Ali, Jan 17 '11 at 00:03
If you want to learn Java, then do some java tutorial (i.e. not Android); if you want to learn Android development, do some tutorials that actually are somewhat relevant for Android application development. Connecting to a remote MySQL database is not a common task and as such won't help you much.. — poke, Jan 17 '11 at 08:43

score 5 · Answer 1 · edited Feb 16 '12 at 05:08

Okay, I understand what do you want. You want to have an EditText or two in the app. The user will enter information in it and after pressing a button th information in the EditText should move into the mysql database. So, you want to make a dynamic app that inserts record into mysql. For that do the following to modify the above java code.

Insert following line below, TextView txt;

EditText editTxt;

Below rootLayout.addView(txt); insert following two lines,

editTxt = new EditText(this);
rootLayout.addView(editTxt);

Now, modify this line, nameValuePairs.add(new BasicNameValuePair("name","tom")); to fetch value from the EditText.

nameValuePairs.add(new BasicNameValuePair("name",editTxt.getText().toString()));

You can also create one for year.

Android - Connecting to MySQL database

1 Answers1

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