SQLiteOpenHelper onUpgrade() Confusion Android

Question

I am doing my first app with a database and I am having a little trouble understanding the onUpgrade function. My database has a table with an items and a favorite column so that the user can favorite an item. Most implementations I see simply drop the table and reconstruct it but I don't want to do this. I want to be able to add more items to the table.

When the app is upgraded through the android marketplace does the database know its version number? So could I increment the version number in the code and then export it to the marketplace and when the user boots up the upgraded version for the first time then onUpgrade will be called?

If this is the case my onUpgrade would simply pull from a file and add the database items in. Is this a standard way of doing things or is there a better way of handling this in Android. I am trying to stay as standard as possible.

Thanks

Answer 1

Ok, before you run into bigger problems you should know that SQLite is limited on the ALTER TABLE command, it allows add and rename only no remove/drop which is done with recreation of the table.

You should always have the new table creation query at hand, and use that for upgrade and transfer any existing data. Note: that the onUpgrade methods runs one for your sqlite helper object and you need to handle all the tables in it.

So what is recommended onUpgrade:

• beginTransaction
• run a table creation with if not exists (we are doing an upgrade, so the table might not exists yet, it will fail alter and drop)
• put in a list the existing columns List<String> columns = DBUtils.GetColumns(db, TableName);
• backup table (ALTER table " + TableName + " RENAME TO 'temp_" + TableName)
• create new table (the newest table creation schema)
• get the intersection with the new columns, this time columns taken from the upgraded table (columns.retainAll(DBUtils.GetColumns(db, TableName));)
• restore data (String cols = StringUtils.join(columns, ","); db.execSQL(String.format( "INSERT INTO %s (%s) SELECT %s from temp_%s", TableName, cols, cols, TableName)); )
• remove backup table (DROP table 'temp_" + TableName)
• setTransactionSuccessful

(This doesn't handle table downgrade, if you rename a column, you don't get the existing data transfered as the column names do not match).

.

public static List<String> GetColumns(SQLiteDatabase db, String tableName) {
    List<String> ar = null;
    Cursor c = null;
    try {
        c = db.rawQuery("select * from " + tableName + " limit 1", null);
        if (c != null) {
            ar = new ArrayList<String>(Arrays.asList(c.getColumnNames()));
        }
    } catch (Exception e) {
        Log.v(tableName, e.getMessage(), e);
        e.printStackTrace();
    } finally {
        if (c != null)
            c.close();
    }
    return ar;
}

public static String join(List<String> list, String delim) {
    StringBuilder buf = new StringBuilder();
    int num = list.size();
    for (int i = 0; i < num; i++) {
        if (i != 0)
            buf.append(delim);
        buf.append((String) list.get(i));
    }
    return buf.toString();
}