Android: How to send and receive data through SMS messages

Question

I want to send some data (NOT MULTIMEDIA) through an SMS message in Android. Can this be done? I just want to send a very small amount of data from one phone to another, as XML or something.

Answer 1

As far as I understand your question I'd say you can send ANY kind of text data like XML, JSON strings or whatever through SMS. You could for example identify your data messages on the receiver by a specific hash that could be a part of the content. The receiver should be listening for the SMS_RECEIVED intent.

<intent-filter>
    <action android:name="android.provider.Telephony.SMS_RECEIVED" />
</intent-filter>

This way you could grab the data and delete the message after that from the message store so it wouldn't show up in the conversation.