Select first SMS on Android database inbox

Question

Hi, I am desesperate to find the solution so I ask for help! I am a new french programmer. My objective is to create a widget able to show SMS. My problem is that I don't no how create a cursor which select The first SMS in content://sms/inbox Excuse my bad English, I hope you will able to understand my wich. thank you for your answer. this is my code:

package sfeir.monwidget;
import android.R.string;
import android.appwidget.AppWidgetManager;
import android.appwidget.AppWidgetProvider;
import android.net.Uri;
import android.widget.RemoteViews;
import android.content.ComponentName;
import android.content.ContentResolver;
import android.content.Context;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.database.Cursor;
import android.widget.ArrayAdapter;   


public class MonWidget extends AppWidgetProvider {

 public void onUpdate(Context context, AppWidgetManager appWidgetManager,
            int[] appWidgetIds) {
     Uri uri = Uri.parse("content://sms/inbox");
    // returns all the results.
    Cursor c= getContentResolver().query(uri, null, null ,null,null); 
    // called by the Activity.
    startManagingCursor(c);
    String body = null;
    String number = null;

    if(c.moveToFirst()) { // move cursor to first row
       // retrieves the body and number of the SMS
       body = c.getString(c.getColumnIndexOrThrow("body")).toString();
       number = c.getString(c.getColumnIndexOrThrow("address")).toString();
    }

    // when your done, close the cursor.
    c.close(); 
 RemoteViews updateViews = new RemoteViews(context.getPackageName(),
         R.layout.widget_layout);


 updateViews.setTextColor(R.id.text, 0xFF000000);
 updateViews.setTextViewText(R.id.text, (CharSequence) body);

 ComponentName thisWidget = new ComponentName(context, MonWidget.class);
 appWidgetManager.updateAppWidget(thisWidget, updateViews);
 }

}

Answer 1

You would need to set specific permissions (read below for the link) but here is example of the code to use a Cursor to retrieve the first SMS message.

Uri uri = Uri.parse("content://sms/inbox");
// returns all the results from the given Context
Cursor c = context.getContentResolver().query(uri, null, null ,null,null); 

String body = null;
String number = null;

if(c.moveToFirst()) { // move cursor to first row
   // retrieves the body and number of the SMS
   body = c.getString(c.getColumnIndexOrThrow("body")).toString();
   number = c.getString(c.getColumnIndexOrThrow("address")).toString();
}

// when your done, close the cursor.
c.close(); 

I would recommend looking over FrontPage/Tutorials/SMS Messaging - Mobdev Wiki it gives a good introductory on dealing with SMS handling on Android.

EDIT:

Those methods were not visible to your application because it was not extending to the Activity superclass. By default, when you develop an application, it inherits methods from that relationship. But you are not creating an application, per se, you are developing a widget.

Luckily, within the onUpdate method they pass in the current Context which is a super class for Activity so we can use the variable context to invoke getContentResolver (see above in the code)

I also removed startManagingCursor method from the code, it is not completely necessary to have, it allows the Activity to handle the given Cursor's lifecycle based on the Activity's lifecycle.

Let me know if theres any problems.

EDIT 2:

Inside your AndroidManifest.xml file you need to set the correct permissions to avoid any exceptions, add this line.

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_SMS"></uses-permission>

Answer 2

Another option is to listen for the SMS_RECEIVED broadcast intent and update your app widget in the broadcast receiver code. There is some information in this question's answers regarding usage.