Does Android support any other database system other than SQLite? - android

I have been searching and have found out, that android supports only SQLite databse and no other. Is this true?

Yes. The Android library provides native support to only SQLite. Of course, this doesn't mean you absolutely can't use other databases on Android; if you need to use other databases, you'll have to either look for already-existing third-party libraries(1), or roll out your own API.
(1) Careful there: If you look for third-party libraries, make sure they're built specifically for Android, since Android includes only a subset of the Java standard library. If they're not specifically built for Android, there's a possibility that the libraries won't work due to missing classes.

Yes, Android Supports H2 Database too. please check it out with below link,
http://www.h2database.com/html/tutorial.html#android
Thanks,

Though SQLite is natively supported on Android and is most used database, there exists other options as well. Listing a few of them below;
Realm:
Reactive, concurrent, and lightweight, allowing you to work with live, native objects.
https://realm.io/docs/
H2:
Full Unicode support including UPPER() and LOWER().
Streaming API for BLOB and CLOB data.
Fulltext search.
Multiple connections.
http://www.h2database.com/html/tutorial.html#android
CouchDB:
Full CRUD and query functionality, NoSQL, lightweight, embedded, syncable
https://developer.couchbase.com/mobile/
LevelDB:
Lightweight and single purpose (not an SQL database)
http://leveldb.org/
Java wrapper: https://github.com/hf/leveldb-android
I am not including BerkeleyDB here as (AFAIK) it needs OS level changes to be made to replace the SQLite routines. More info here https://blogs.oracle.com/berkeleydb/now-you-can-build-berkeley-db-into-your-android-apps

SQLite is the only one I ever actually see being used. I would suggest using it because it is lightweight and free to use. When developing your App, lightweight is key, memory is limited on these devices! Is there any specific reason why you wouldn't want to use SQLite? Any feature that you're looking for that you don't see in SQLite?

Related

Android/JVM SQLite database

I'm trying to have a small Android app have its own database, my first take on this was to simply use the Room persistence library, and it worked wonders, it's an awesome library but...
Later on I decided to try something weird and port that app to Desktop too (JVM).
My plan was to have 3 gradle modules:
common logic
android (importing common)
jvm (importing common)
Problem is that... I can't use Room anymore since it would be in the common logic module that's not an android module.
I tried to switch to Ktorm, and it seemed nice but Ktorm can't create tables from the schema so i had to drop it.
Then i tried to switch to Exposed since it has the functionality to create tables from the schema, but Exposed has a few problems:
The JDBC driver for Desktop (xerial) is not supported on android, so i should use different drivers per platform (for example using SQLDroid for android)
Its DAO can't have a table with a composite key (which i need to have), and not having the DAO would make everything harder in the code since I'd have to issue the queries directly and get a ResultRow, and then convert them to the objects I need.
My last resort would be creating some monstruous class that totally hide the database providing only the minimum read and write methods that i need and has some sort of flag called android and totally change what its methods do if that flag is true or false, so that it would use Room on Android and Exposed on JVM, but it sounds like a terrible idea.
Some idea of how would it be possible to create and use a simple SQLite database in both JVM and Android with the same code?
UPDATE:
I'm now using SQLDelight and even though it's not as comfy as Room and its documentation isn't super extensive, it's pretty nice and does what i wanted, figured out writing this could be useful for someone that come across my same doubt.

Alternative to core data in android?

I am building a social media application which requires local storage of table data entities. This data must also be connected to a server to retrieve and update information to and from users. Our team has built an iOS client using core data, though we are looking for storage options in android. Is using SQLite the way to go? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
You should take a look at Realm, it has clients for Objective-C, Swift and Android.
Description from their GitHub repository:
Features
Mobile-first: Realm is the first database built from the ground up to run directly inside phones, tablets and wearables.
Simple: Data is directly exposed as objects and queryable by code, removing the need for ORM's riddled with performance & maintenance issues. Plus, we've worked hard to keep our API down to very few classes: most of our users pick it up intuitively, getting simple apps up & running in minutes.
Modern: Realm supports easy thread-safety, relationships & encryption.
Fast: Realm is faster than even raw SQLite on common operations, while maintaining an extremely rich feature set.
If you're familiar with RxJava, you will probably want to check SQLBrite, wich is Square's solution for this.
Yes, Sqlite is a default storage solution for android. Howevere there is a wrap around it called ContentProvider. ContentProvider can be used with Loaders and provide async data loading. ContentProvider may be used to modify contats and merge accounts, see this guide. However ContentProvider may seem tricky and if you prefer ORMs you can use ORMLite or GreenDAO which are using sqlite as well.

How do you convert Coredata to be compatible with Android OS?

I have an iOS application about 80% done coded in Coredata and Parse, and I have come to the conclusion that the App will have a better chance on the Android platform, so I am looking to convert my current code over to the Android platform without starting from scratch.
Is there a way to automatically convert Coredata to work with Android? Or does the conversion have to be done manually? Also, what does this process entail and how long would it generally take?
There's no good way to automatically convert Coredata to work with Android. Android does not come with an Object-Relational Mapping tool out of the box like iOS does. You have to either create your own SQLite database using a SQLiteOpenHelper or you can use an ORM library. There are several to choose from: Cupboard, Sugar ORM, and ORMLite are a few examples.
As #James McCracken said there's no easy way to port your coredata work to android.
However there's realm which works as a replacement for CoreData, has some features and drawbacks but there will be (supposedly) a version for android soon, so if you really need to has that kind of support or integration for both platforms, realm could be a good alternative.
Also this reading could be helpful.

Android application and myBatis

I'd like to use myBatis (iBatis 3) in an Android application. Has anyone tried such a thing or know of any resources for this?
aBatis is a data mapper framework available for Android
 that couples objects with stored procedures or
 SQL statements using an XML descriptor or annotations.
aBatis is like an Android equivalent of iBatis.
---simple & light ORM library like iBatis for Web development
--carrying ibatis's feature
--easy-to-use as iBatis
--shorten a development period
--independent of development phase
--Android sdk1.6 and up
http://sonixlabs.com/abatis/
The first thing to do in order to do that is to compile myBatis for Dalvik. But it's likely to be too heavy for a device like a smartphone.
If you are looking for a lightweight persistence layer, you could look at Ammentos:
http://www.ammentos.org/
Same trouble: you will need to compile it for Dalvik.
Existing ORMs for Android:
http://ormlite.sourceforge.net/sqlite_java_android_orm.html
https://www.activeandroid.com/
It's better to use lightweight lib in android apps like greenDAO or Ormlite, greenDAO is an open source project to help Android developers working with data stored in SQLite. SQLite is an awesome embedded relational database. However, developing for it requires alot of additional work. Writing SQL and parsing query results are quite tedious tasks. greenDAO will do the work for you: it maps Java objects to database tables (often called ORM). This way you can store, update, delete, and query for Java objects using a simple object oriented API. Save time and focus on real problems!
greenDAO’s primary design goals
Maximum performance (probably the fastest ORM for Android)
Easy to use APIs Highly optimized for Android Minimal memory
consumption
Small library size, focus on the essentials
I create simple android project that using mybatis
check this: https://github.com/gustaroska/HijrDroid

Higher level database layer for Android?

Are there any good database abstraction layers/object relational mappers/ActiveRecord implementations/whatever they are called for Android? I'm aware that db4o is officially supported, but it has quite a large footprint and I'd rather use a more conventional database (SQLite).
I am the main author of ORMLite which was designed to be small[ish] but still provide higher level functionality. ORMLite makes calls to the native Android OS database APIs to support its ORM functionality. See the following for general information
http://ormlite.com/sqlite_java_android_orm.shtml
Here are some Android example applications:
http://ormlite.com/docs/android-examples
I tried the Sugar ORM, which is very basic (and easy to use) but it worked for my needs.
Sugar website
There is an 'android-active-record' project which provides ActiveRecord abstraction for accessing Android SQLite database.
It's available here: http://code.google.com/p/android-active-record
It allows to eliminate most of boilerplate coding when performing CRUD operations on database entities and also minimizes efforts for creating/maintaining a database structure
Try ActiveAndroid. It is free and open source (Apache Version 2.0).
From the website:
ActiveAndroid is an active record style ORM (object relational
mapper). [...] ActiveAndroid allows you
to save and retrieve SQLite database records without ever writing a
single SQL statement. Each database record is wrapped neatly into a
class with methods like save() and delete().
[...] Accessing the database is a hassle, to say the least, in Android.
ActiveAndroid takes care of all the setup and messy stuff, and all
with just a few simple steps of configuration.
If performance and size matter, you should have a look at our open source ORM tool greenDAO. We wrote it because we did not want to compromise on speed. Other tools heavily rely on reflection, which is very slow on Android. Despite the tiny size (<100k), it supports relations, query builders, etc.
Shameless plug, but I've been working on a new open source Android framework called Infinitum. One of its main features is an ORM which has a criteria API similar to Hibernate and a few other nifty features (associations, lazy loading, etc.). It's still in its early stages, but I think it's coming along pretty nicely.
I have written a new ORM, for android, that's aimed and being as easy as possible to implement. It support lists and SQL free migration a couple things which I always found had an overhead in other libraries.
http://www.rushorm.com/
I faced the same problem and looked at both android-active-record and ActiveAndroid. I found android-active-record didn't handle the things I cared about (relationships for example), and ActiveAndroid isn't free. Therefore, I decided to write my own library. It's called AndroidRecord and it's hosted on GitHub and you're free to do with it what you want (I think I'm going to go with the MIT license). I use this every day and I'm content with it, but I'd love to get feedback.
If you need to know how to use it, I'm working on the documentation. If you need it right away, you can check out this lame example project which should be enough to dip your toes in. You can also email me of course.
There's also Neodatis and Perst (Lite).
I've toyed with Perst a year ago and concluded it's not worth it.
After all, a) Android runs on a rather restricted device with ~16mb of heap space per app and b) You customers would really appreciate performance and low power consumption.
So my advice is to go with SQLite and hand-written SQL. It's not hard at all and the wrappers provided by Android SDK are really nice.
EDIT: In 2012 the advice would be to use the ORM component of DroidParts (which is my project).
I was comparing basics of ormlite and greendao some time ago. You might want to take a look there. I plan to write some follow up with more advanced stuff in the near future but for now it's only a basic stuff. In my own project I'm using GreenDAO.
Have a look at Androrm. It is open source and well documented (see here). If you ever worked with django, you will notice, that the syntax is very similar.
Androrm also supports abstraction classes for the most common field types, plus relational fields. This way it enables you to query for your data in an very easy manner with only very little effort on your side.
SQLite is explicitly part of Android:
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/database/sqlite/SQLiteDatabase.html
However you might have to create your own abstraction layer (query builder for simple queries), or otherwise deal with SQL.
Maybe http://developer.android.com/reference/android/database/sqlite/SQLiteQueryBuilder.html is what you need?

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