Update app with preloaded SQLite

Question

My app uses a preloaded and copied from /assets to data/data ( Ship an application with a database) db which is simply a single table of product data and is 'read only' as users do not save to the DB. If I add more products to the DB table I need to get this to existing users. If I update my app with the new DB will the update process delete the old DB that was copied from the assets dir to data/data thereby allowing the 'DBexists' check to fail on first running the updated version thus triggering copying of the new DB from /assets to data/data?

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 05 '11 at 10:22

1

Short answer, yes, if you put the following snippet it the onUpgrade() method:

try {
    copyDataBase("database.db");
} catch (IOException e) {
    Log.w(TAG, e);
}

It may be worth deleting the db file in copyDataBase() before writing over it, just to make it less likely to corrupt.

NB: this uses the implementation as used in the accepted answer of the question you linked.

answered Aug 05 '11 at 10:22

Alex Curran

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Having now re-read the upgrade part of the linked question there is every chance that I would mess that up. My DB is only ever likely to be a max of 200k so I will copy it every time the app is run. Will this do the delete in data/data? File dir = getFilesDir(); File file = new File(dir, "database.db"); boolean deleted = file.delete(); – Graham Aug 07 '11 at 08:52
Yup, I think so, but be careful to catch the error (`FileNotFoundException`) in the case the db doesn't exist. I've found with my db that it is really easy for it to get corrupted/not copy properly, so also be careful and check for that. – Alex Curran Aug 07 '11 at 14:33

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 05 '11 at 10:06

Off the top of my head the only thing I can think of is to slightly abuse the onUpgrade() method in your SQLiteOpenHelper implementation, and change the database by making a call to this with a new version number and having it do whatever you need it to do in that method.

Saying that, I don't really know much about the Android app update process, so this could be way off.

Update app with preloaded SQLite

2 Answers2

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