How to access a variable stored in an online file

Question

Am still new to Android in some stuff and I want to do something that I do on my php script which is kind of a SAAS. There I have some line of code that runs online to check for new update of my cms when the use opens the admin dashboard. I want to do the same with my android app by maybe saving a txt file on a github repository like

http://github.com/wasiro/myapp/version.txt

which I will be updating when i make a major app update

Where i save something like 1.0.9.734 so that my app can get the variable and use it to inform my user that there is a new update alternatively

currenty i have this on my code

public static final String BaseUrl = "http://github.com/wasiro/myapp/version.txt";

Any assistance on achieving this would help alot and if there are better ways to do it please enlighten me.

Don't confuse this to JSON because I want to use GitHub to store my variable like I do with my phone script

Edit: When I tried this instead of the variable in the file being extracted and read it was the path to the file that got on the way of the code

Possible duplicate of [What is the most efficient way on Android to call HTTP Web API calls that return a JSON response?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19050294/what-is-the-most-efficient-way-on-android-to-call-http-web-api-calls-that-return). Even if this question is about JSON and not text data the general approach is more or less the same. May be JSON is even better for what you want. — Robert, Mar 25 '19 at 19:14
@Robert I want to use GitHub to store my variable and not some custom server somewhere. — , Mar 25 '19 at 20:16
It seems like it would work. I'm not exactly sure what you're asking for though. You should be able to download and parse a file without much issue. — Nick Vitha, Mar 25 '19 at 20:20
I have tried but it does not work on java like it works on php — , Mar 25 '19 at 20:25

Jack Siro · Accepted Answer · 2019-03-26T07:10:39.697

I think everyone is too quick to brush the question aside to being a duplicate instead of understanding what is all about? So sad this is what the SO community has become.

Your issue is to open a file located elsewhere.

private class myStreamReader extends AsyncTask<String, Void, String> {
    String str = "";
    @Override
    protected String doInBackground(String... params) {
        try {
            URL url = new URL("http://github.com/wasiro/myapp/version.txt");
            BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(url.openStream()));
            str = in.readLine();
            in.close();
        } catch (MalformedURLException e) {
        } catch (IOException e) {
        }

        return "Executed";
    }

    @Override
    protected void onPostExecute(String result) {
        //do something here
         httpStuff.setText(str);
    }

    @Override
    protected void onPreExecute() {}

    @Override
    protected void onProgressUpdate(Void... values) {}
}

Thanks so much for this answer. At least you so all the people understood what I wanted — , Mar 26 '19 at 04:35

How to access a variable stored in an online file

1 Answers1