Data exchange with remote server in Android

Question

Hello!

I'm building an application for android which collects user data.

Also I'm going to build a website which will use that data where users can have an account and synchronize data with phone and website (I guess it's quite common setup). Site will be using MySQL database, but I want it to be database independent using some kind of API. I think I'm going to use Python for website (Django).

Since I haven't started whole synchronization part yet I have a question on how to do it best. Which protocol to use - JSON, SOAP, XML (any other)? Which is best supported in android?

What are the best practices in doing such a thing?

Leonti

Answer 1

Android lacks a built-in API for processing SOAP or XML-RPC requests, so I would go with a REST-style Web service. JSON is probably the easiest from an Android perspective to consume and create.