How to save images into Database

Question

I'd like to know if there's a way to save Images (of the type .gif) to the sqllite-database. If yes how should my DatabaseAdapter look like.

Also is there a performance issue?

Answer 1

You should use BLOB in your database:

Check this tutorial...

But I think you should download and store image in HashMap, which will make it simpler.

Code:

Stroring

var imageMap = new HashMap<String, byte[]>();

var imageUrl = "http://i.stack.imgur.com/TLjuP.jpg";

var imagedata = GetImage(imageUrl);      

imageMap.put("img",imagedata);

Retrieving

var imageData = imageMap.get("img");

var imageStream = new ByteArrayInputStream(imageData);

var image = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(imageStream);

GetImage

private byte[] GetImage(String url)
{
    try
    {
        var imageUrl = new URL(url);
        var urlConnection = imageUrl.openConnection();

        var inputStream = urlConnection.getInputStream();
        var bufferedInputStream = new BufferedInputStream(inputStream);

        var byteArrayBuffer = new ByteArrayBuffer(500);

        int current = 0;
        while ((current = bis.read()) != -1)
        {
            byteArrayBuffer.append((byte)current);
        }

        return byteArrayBuffer.toByteArray();
    }
    catch (Exception e)
    {
        Log.d("ImageManager", "Error: " + e.toString());
        return null;
    }       
}

Hope it helps you.

Answer 2

There's nothing special in storing image to SQLite. Just create table with BLOB record type and do smth like:

protected long saveBitmap(SQLiteDatabase database, Bitmap bmp)
{
    int size = bmp.getRowBytes() * bmp.getHeight(); 
    ByteBuffer b = ByteBuffer.allocate(size); bmp.copyPixelsToBuffer(b); 
    byte[] bytes = new byte[size];
    b.get(bytes, 0, bytes.length);
    ContentValues cv=new ContentValues();
    cv.put(CHUNK, bytes);
    this.id= database.insert(TABLE, null, cv);
}

Probably you migth want to save image chunk by chunk, since there's limits/recommended BLOB size (don't really recall how much)