Android: copy database from asset folder, but only get an empty file

Question

guys, I have the problem when copying database from local assets folder to /data/data/package_name/databases directory. As I use the http://www.reigndesign.com/blog/using-your-own-sqlite-database-in-android-applications/ tutorial to do it, I can only get an empty file.

I quoted the part of copyDataBase() method and there is no difference. Every time the app start, it will create the directory and empty database. So is there any way to make the copyDataBase() work?

Thank you very much!!

Answer 1

Why wouldn't you copy from assets? It's perfectly normal to do so. But you can't do it in the onCreate, at that point an empty database is already created. You need to do it prior. I usually do it in an override of getWriteableDatabase, something like

public synchronized SQLiteDatabase getWritableDatabase() {
    SQLiteDatabase db = null;

    if (!doesDatabaseExist()) {
        try {
            copyDatabase();
            db = super.getWritableDatabase();
        } catch(Exception ex) {
            Log.e("Database Log", getDatabasePath() + " failed to copy correctly. " + ex.getLocalizedMessage());
        }
    }
    else {
        db = super.getWritableDatabase();
    }

    return db;
}