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Data Files and Storage: Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License. All Rights Reserved

This document discusses internal and external storage options in Android, including reading and writing files. It covers the main methods for accessing internal storage, examples of reading from and writing to internal storage, as well as permissions and methods for external storage, and includes an example of writing to external storage.

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54 views12 pages

Data Files and Storage: Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License. All Rights Reserved

This document discusses internal and external storage options in Android, including reading and writing files. It covers the main methods for accessing internal storage, examples of reading from and writing to internal storage, as well as permissions and methods for external storage, and includes an example of writing to external storage.

Uploaded by

alolmani_oop
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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CS 193A

Data files and storage

This document is copyright (C) Marty Stepp and Stanford Computer Science.
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License. All rights reserved.
Files and storage
● Android can read/write files from two locations:
– internal and external storage.
– Both are persistent storage; data remains after power-off / reboot.

● internal storage: Built into the device.


– guaranteed to be present
– typically smaller (~1-4 gb)
– can't be expanded or removed
– specific and private to each app
– wiped out when the app is uninstalled
File (link) and Streams (link)
● java.io.File - Objects that represent a file or directory.
– methods: canRead, canWrite, create, delete, exists, getName,
getParent, getPath, isFile, isDirectory, lastModified, length, listFiles,
mkdir, mkdirs, renameTo

● java.io.InputStream, OutputStream - Stream objects represent


flows of data bytes from/to a source or destination.
– Could come from a file, network, database, memory, ...
– Normally not directly used; they only include low-level methods for
reading/writing a byte (character) at a time from the input.
– Instead, a stream is often passed as parameter to other objects like
java.util.Scanner, java.io.BufferedReader, java.io.PrintStream to do the
actual reading / writing.
Using internal storage (link)
● An activity has methods you can call to read/write files:
– getFilesDir() - returns internal directory for your app
– getCacheDir() - returns a "temp" directory for scrap files
– getResources().openRawResource(R.raw.id)
- read an input file from res/raw/
– openFileInput("name", mode) - opens a file for reading
– openFileOutput("name", mode) - opens a file for writing

● You can use these to read/write files on the device.


– many methods return standard java.io.File objects
– some return java.io.InputStream or OutputStream objects, which can
be used with standard classes like Scanner, BufferedReader, and
PrintStream to read/write files (see Java API)
Internal storage example 1
// read a file, and put its contents into a TextView
// (assumes hello.txt file exists in res/raw/ directory)
Scanner scan = new Scanner(
getResources().openRawResource(R.raw.hello));
String allText = ""; // read entire file
while (scan.hasNextLine()) {
String line = scan.nextLine();
allText += line;
}
myTextView.setText(allText);
scan.close();
Internal storage example 2
// write a short text file to the internal storage
PrintStream output = new PrintStream
openFileOutput("out.txt", MODE_PRIVATE));
output.println("Hello, world!");
output.println("How are you?");
output.close();
...
// read the same file, and put its contents into a TextView
Scanner scan = new Scanner(
openFileInput("out.txt", MODE_PRIVATE));
String allText = ""; // read entire file
while (scan.hasNextLine()) {
String line = scan.nextLine();
allText += line;
}
myTextView.setText(allText);
scan.close();
External storage
● external storage: Card that is inserted into the device.
(such as a MicroSD card)
– can be much larger than internal storage (~8-32 gb)
– can be removed or transferred to another device if needed
– may not be present, depending on the device
– read/writable by other apps and users; not private to your app
– not wiped when the app is uninstalled, except in certain cases
External storage permission
● If your app needs to read/write the device's
external storage, you must explicitly request
permission to do so in your app's
AndroidManifest.xml file.
– On install, the user will be prompted
to confirm your app permissions.

<manifest ...>
<uses-permission
android:name="android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />
<uses-permission
android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />
...
</manifest>
Using external storage
● Methods to read/write external storage:
– getExternalFilesDir("name") -
returns "private" external directory for your app with the given name
– Environment.getExternalStoragePublicDirectory(name) -
returns public directory for common files like photos, music, etc.
● pass constants for name such as Environment.DIRECTORY_ALARMS,
DIRECTORY_DCIM, DIRECTORY_DOWNLOADS, DIRECTORY_MOVIES,
DIRECTORY_MUSIC, DIRECTORY_NOTIFICATIONS, DIRECTORY_PICTURES,
DIRECTORY_PODCASTS, DIRECTORY_RINGTONES

● You can use these to read/write files on the external storage.


– the above methods return standard java.io.File objects
– these can be used with standard classes like Scanner, BufferedReader,
and PrintStream to read/write files (see Java API)
External storage example
// write short data to app-specific external storage
File outDir = getExternalFilesDir(null); // root dir
File outFile = new File(outDir, "example.txt");
PrintStream output = new PrintStream(outFile);
output.println("Hello, world!");
output.close();

// read list of pictures in external storage


File picsDir =
Environment.getExternalStoragePublicDirectory(
Environment.DIRECTORY_PICTURES);
for (File file : picsDir.listFiles()) {
...
}
Checking if storage is available
/* Checks if external storage is available
* for reading and writing */
public boolean isExternalStorageWritable() {
return Environment.MEDIA_MOUNTED.equals(
Environment.getExternalStorageState());
}

/* Checks if external storage is available


* for reading */
public boolean isExternalStorageReadable() {
return isExternalStorageWritable() ||
Environment.MEDIA_MOUNTED_READ_ONLY.equals(
Environment.getExternalStorageState());
}
Accessing web data (link)
● To read data from the web, first request the INTERNET
permission in your AndroidManifest.xml:
<uses-permission
android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />

● Then you can use the standard java.net.URL class to connect


to a file or page at a given URL and read its data:
URL url = new URL("http://foobar.com/example.txt");
Scanner scan = new Scanner(url.openStream());
while (scan.hasNextLine()) {
String line = scan.nextLine();
...
}

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