Android Developer Fundamentals

Content
Providers
Lesson 11

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11.1 Content Providers
Share data with other apps

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Contents

● What is a ContentProvider
● App with Content Provider Architecture
● Implementation
○ Contract
○ ContentProvider
○ Manifest Permissions
○ Content Resolver

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What is a
Content
Provider

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What is a Content Provider?

● A content provider is a component fetches data that the app

requests from a repository
● The app doesn't need to know where or how the data is
stored, formatted, or accessed

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What is a Content Resolver?
● A content resolver is a component that your app uses to
send requests to a content provider

● Requests consist of a content URI and an SQL-like query

● The ContentResolver object provides query(), insert(),
update(), and delete() methods

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 How do they work together?
Activity / Adapter 1. Activity/Adapter uses
ContentResolver to query
ContentResolver
ContentProvider
2. ContentProvider gets data
ContentProvider
3. ContentResolver returns data as
Cursor
Data 4. Activity/Adapter uses data
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What is it good for?

● Securely make data available to other apps

● Manage access permissions to app data

● Store data or develop backend independently from UI

● Standardized way of accessing data
● Required to work with CursorLoaders

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Many apps can use one content provider
App that manages hat App that sells red hats
inventory Content Resolver
Content Resolver "Get red hats"

Hat Store Content App that sells fancy hats

Provider
Content Resolver
"Get fancy hats"

Hat inventory data

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App with
Content
Provider

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Components of a Content Provider App

Let's look at each of these...

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Data Repository

● Data, commonly in SQLite

Database but can be any
backend
● OpenHelper if you use SQLite
database

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 Contract
Public class that exposes information about the content
provider to other apps

Contract specifies
● URIs to query data
● Table structure of data
● MIME type of returned data
● Constants
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Content Provider

● Public secure interface

● Permissions control access
● Subclass of ContentProvider
● query(), insert(), delete(),
update() API

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Content Resolver

● Send requests to content

provider and return response

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Implementation

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Implementing a Content Provider

● Data—Commonly an SQLite database

● Write contract—Information about the content provider
● Subclass ContentProvider and implement methods
● Get data using ContentResolver
● Set permissions in Android Manifest

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Why SQLite Database?

● Represents data in tables

● Supports same operations as content provider
● Returns requested data as cursor
● OpenHelper class to simplify management

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Contract

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What's in a Contract?
● Public class that documents content provider API
● Called Contract by convention
● Contains
○ Content URIs and URI scheme to query data
○ Table and column names for returned data
○ MIME types to help process returned data
○ Shared constants to make life easier

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Content URI

● http:// and file:// are URIs for web pages and files
● Content URI is path to data and uses content://

E.g. request all the entries in the "words" table

content://com.android.example.wordcontentprovider.provider/words

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General form of a URI

scheme://authority/path/id

● scheme is always content:// for content URIs

● authority represents the domain, and for content providers
customarily ends in .provider
● path is the path to the data
● id uniquely identifies the data set to search

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URI Scheme
By convention, provide constants for

● AUTHORITY—Domain
● CONTENT_PATH—Path to the data
● CONTENT_URI—URI to one set of data

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URI Scheme in Code

public static final String AUTHORITY =

"com.android.example.minimalistcontentprovider.provider";

public static final String CONTENT_PATH = "words";

public static final Uri CONTENT_URI = Uri.parse("content://" +

AUTHORITY + "/" + CONTENT_PATH);

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Table definitions
public static final String DATABASE_NAME = "wordlist";

public static abstract class WordList implements BaseColumns {

public static final String WORD_LIST_TABLE = "word_entries";
// Column names...
public static final String KEY_ID = "_id";
public static final String KEY_WORD = "word";
}

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MIME Type

● Format of returned data

● text/html for web pages, application/json for JSON data
● App calls getType() to get MIME type from provider
● Use Android's vendor-specific format for your content
providers MIME type

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Android's vendor-specific MIME Type
type.subtype/provider-specific-part
● Type: vnd
● Subtype
○ If URI pattern is for a single row: android.cursor.item/
○ If URI pattern is for more than one row: android.cursor.dir/
● Provider-specific part: vnd.<name>.<type>
○ <name>: globally unique, such as company or package name
○ <type> unique to corresponding URI pattern, such as table name

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MIME Type Example

Multiple words
vnd.android.cursor.dir/vnd.com.example.provider.words

One word
vnd.android.cursor.item/vnd.com.example.provider.words

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MIME Type code in Contract

static final String SINGLE_RECORD_MIME_TYPE =

"vnd.android.cursor.item/vnd.com.example.provider.words";

static final String MULTIPLE_RECORDS_MIME_TYPE =

"vnd.android.cursor.item/vnd.com.example.provider.words";

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getType()
@Override
public String getType(Uri uri) {
switch (sUriMatcher.match(uri)) {
case URI_ALL_ITEMS_CODE:
return MULTIPLE_RECORDS_MIME_TYPE;
case URI_ONE_ITEM_CODE:
return SINGLE_RECORD_MIME_TYPE;
default:
return null;
}
}
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Constants

● Constants that are used by multiple classes in an app

● Convenience constants for client use
● Encapsulate parameters whose values might change as
constants, so that if the content provider changes, the
clients don't break

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ContentProvider

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Extend ContentProvider

public class WordListContentProvider

extends ContentProvider {}

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Implement methods

● query(), insert(), delete(), and update() methods

● interact with the data backend …
● … such as an Open Helper

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Example insert()
/**
* Inserts one record.
*
* @return URI for the newly created entry.
*/
@Override
public Uri insert(Uri uri, ContentValues values) {
long id = mDB.insert(values);
return Uri.parse(CONTENT_URI + "/" + id);
}

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 Manifest
Permissions

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Set Permissions!

● By default, with no permissions set explicitly, any other app

can access a content provider for reading and writing
● Set read or write permissions in AndroidManifest
● Use unique tags that include package name

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Provider in Android Manifest

<provider
android:name=".WordListContentProvider"
android:authorities=
"com.android.example.wordlistsqlwithcontentprovider.provider"
android:exported="true" />

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Permissions inside <provider>

android:readPermission=
"com.android.example.wordlistsqlwithcontentprovider.PERMISSION"

android:writePermission=
"com.android.example.wordlistsqlwithcontentprovider.PERMISSION"

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 Client permissions
● Granted by the user

<uses-permission android:name =
"com.android.example.wordlistsqlwithcontentprovider.PERMISSION"/>

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Content
Resolver

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Content Resolver

● Must use a ContentResolver to send requests as queries

to the content provider
● Data is returned in a Cursor object, as rows and columns

Activity

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Content Resolver methods

● ContentResolver.query()
● ContentResolver.insert()
● ContentResolver.delete()
● ContentResolver.update()

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getContentResolver.query()

public Cursor query(

Uri uri,
String[] projection,
String selection,
String[] selectionArgs,
String sortOrder){ … // implementation }

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Calling getContentResolver.query()

Cursor cursor = getContentResolver().query(

Uri.parse(queryUri), projection, selectionClause,
selectionArgs, sortOrder);

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Query parameters (recap)

uri: String queryUri = Contract.CONTENT_URI.toString();

projection: String[] projection =

new String[] {Contract.CONTENT_PATH};

selection: String where = KEY_WORD + " LIKE ?";

selectionArgs: String[]whereArgs = new String[]{searchString};

sortOrder: > null for default, ASC / DESC

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Recap

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Summary of implementing content provider

● Data, for example, in a database

● A way for accessing the backend, for example, through an open helper
● Declare content provider in Android Manifest and set permissions
● Extend ContentProvider and implement query(), insert(), delete(), update(),
count(), and getType() methods
● Create public Contract class to expose URI scheme, table names, MIME type,
and important constants to other classes and apps
● Use a ContentResolver to send requests to content provider
○ Process data returned as cursor

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Practicals Info

● Minimalist Content Provider to show you mechanics

● Add a content provider to the WordList app for a more
realistic example
● Create a separate client app that accesses the content
provider of the WordList app

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Learn more
● Uniform Resource Identifiers or URIs
● MIME type
● MatrixCursor and Cursors
● Content Providers
Videos
● Android Application Architecture
● Android Application Architecture: The Next Billion Users
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What's Next?
● Concept Chapter
● 11.1 C Content Providers
● Practicals
○ 11.1A P Minimalist Content Provider

○ 11.1B P Add a Content Provider to WorldListSQL

○ 11.1C P Sharing Content with Other Apps
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END

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