How to cache/save custom class object in Android? - java

I want to save ArrayList<CustomClass>-object to somewhere in Android storage to retrieve quickly and display data in it.
Is this possible or not? If yes, then which technique will be suitable, SQLite or external storage?

example.
public class MyClass implements Serializable
{
private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
public String title;
public String startTime;
public String endTime;
public String day;
public boolean classEnabled;
public MyClass(String title, String startTime, boolean enable) {
this.title = title;
this.startTime = startTime;
this.classEnabled = enable;
}
public boolean saveObject(MyClass obj) {
final File suspend_f=new File(SerializationTest.cacheDir, "test");
FileOutputStream fos = null;
ObjectOutputStream oos = null;
boolean keep = true;
try {
fos = new FileOutputStream(suspend_f);
oos = new ObjectOutputStream(fos);
oos.writeObject(obj);
} catch (Exception e) {
keep = false;
} finally {
try {
if (oos != null) oos.close();
if (fos != null) fos.close();
if (keep == false) suspend_f.delete();
} catch (Exception e) { /* do nothing */ }
}
return keep;
}
public MyClass getObject(Context c) {
final File suspend_f=new File(SerializationTest.cacheDir, "test");
MyClass simpleClass= null;
FileInputStream fis = null;
ObjectInputStream is = null;
try {
fis = new FileInputStream(suspend_f);
is = new ObjectInputStream(fis);
simpleClass = (MyClass) is.readObject();
} catch(Exception e) {
String val= e.getMessage();
} finally {
try {
if (fis != null) fis.close();
if (is != null) is.close();
} catch (Exception e) { }
}
return simpleClass;
}
and calling from activity
if(android.os.Environment.getExternalStorageState().equals(android.os.Environment.MEDIA_MOUNTED))
cacheDir=new File(android.os.Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory(),"MyCustomObject");
else
cacheDir= getCacheDir();
if(!cacheDir.exists())
cacheDir.mkdirs();
MyClass m = new MyClass("umer", "asif", true);
boolean result = m.saveObject(m);
if(result)
Toast.makeText(this, "Saved object", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
else
Toast.makeText(this, "Error saving object", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
MyClass m = new MyClass();
MyClass c = m.getObject(this);
if(c!= null)
Toast.makeText(this, "Retrieved object", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
else
Toast.makeText(this, "Error retrieving object", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
dont forget to use write_external_storage permissions in manifest file.

This problem isn't really android specific. I mean if you know how to serialize your data either via java.io.Serializable or you have a custom persistence format, you just need to know where to store it.
You can grab a file on the local device via
FileOutputStream stream = null;
try{
stream = mContext.openFileOutput("name.data", Context.MODE_PRIVATE);
ObjectOutputStream dout = new ObjectOutputStream(stream);
dout.writeObject(myArrayList);
dout.flush();
stream.getFD().sync();
} catch(IOException e) { //Do something intelligent
} finally {
stream.close();
}
You will have to use openFileInput() later to read the data back.
Or you can grab External Storage. This is similar however you have to guarantee that it even exists. Like is the external storage connected and even able to be written to. Since you are writing a data structure here and usually external storage is world readable I don't think this is a good idea for your intended purposes (just from what you have put so far).
If your data is structured and is going to be queried many times and it might be rather big to always load up then consider using the sql lite tools that are part of the OS. However I am assuming you don't need this either as a simple list is just that, a linear structures which you could probably seek through in a file (assuming it is less than 1MB of data :)

This issue can be solved by singleton class here in which you can set/get any object eg arrayList in any time. If you used Android Service then this solutuion is not suitable.
Perhaps the solution to your problem can be found here.

Related

Java: Local caching and changes [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
Java serialization, UID not changed. Can I add new variables and method to the class?
(4 answers)
Closed 2 years ago.
I have a class with name and age
class Person implements serializable {
int age;
String name;
}
I have an ArrayList of this class
ArrayList<Person> persons = new ArrayList<Person>
When tomcat shuts down, I save the above to a local file:
ByteArrayOutputStream bos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
ObjectOutput out = null;
try {
out = new ObjectOutputStream(bos);
out.writeObject(persons);
out.flush();
byte[] objBytes = bos.toByteArray();
File file = new File("./persons.bin");
Files.write(objBytes, file);
} catch (Exception e) {
System.out.println(e.getMessage());
} finally {
try {
bos.close();
} catch (IOException ex) {
}
}
and when tomcat starts up, I load the file back:
File file = new File("./persons.bin");
if (!file.exists()) return;
byte[] objBytes = Files.toByteArray(file);
ByteArrayInputStream bis = new ByteArrayInputStream(objBytes);
ObjectInput in = null;
try {
in = new ObjectInputStream(bis);
ArrayList<Person> persons = (ArrayList<Person>) in.readObject();
} finally {
try {
if (in != null) {
in.close();
}
} catch (IOException ex) {
}
}
The above works as expected. My question is what will happen if later on the Person class will be added with new properties, for example:
class Person implements serializable {
int age;
String name;
String address;
}
I'm not using Gson because of the overhead it creates and I prefer to save the data as binary. Will the above fail? Succeed but address will be null? Weird things will happen? Do I have any control over what can be done in such cases?
Thanks
Edit: For the class I have
private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
It will break! You have to define a serialVersionUID or otherwise one will be created based on the properties of the class. So if you change the class the serialVersionUID would change aswell. If the UID don't match InvalidClassException is thrown.
Saving objects instead of the state of the object comes with alot of problems through and I recommend to save them in a more appropriate format. JSON, XML or even CSVs... Seriously that bit of overhead will save you from alot of trouble later on.

PDF file download using BlockingQueue

I'm trying to download a pdf file using URLConnection. Here's how I setup the connection object.
URL serverUrl = new URL(url);
urlConnection = (HttpURLConnection) serverUrl.openConnection();
urlConnection.setDoInput(true);
urlConnection.setRequestMethod("GET");
urlConnection.setRequestProperty("Content-Type", "application/pdf");
urlConnection.setRequestProperty("ENCTYPE", "multipart/form-data");
String contentLength = urlConnection.getHeaderField("Content-Length");
I obtained inputstream from the connection object.
bufferedInputStream = new BufferedInputStream(urlConnection.getInputStream());
And the output stream to write the file contents.
File dir = new File(context.getFilesDir(), mFolder);
if(!dir.exists()) dir.mkdir();
final File f = new File(dir, String.valueOf(documentName));
f.createNewFile();
final BufferedOutputStream bufferedOutputStream = new BufferedOutputStream(new FileOutputStream(f, true)); //true for appendMode
BlockingQueue is created so that threads performing read and write operations can access the queue.
final BlockingQueue<ByteArrayWrapper> blockingQueue = new ArrayBlockingQueue<ByteArrayWrapper>(MAX_VALUE,true);
final byte[] dataBuffer = new byte[MAX_VALUE];
Now created thread to read data from InputStream.
Thread readerThread = new Thread(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
try {
int count = 0;
while((count = bufferedInputStream.read(dataBuffer, 0, dataBuffer.length)) != -1) {
ByteArrayWrapper byteArrayWrapper = new ByteArrayWrapper(dataBuffer);
byteArrayWrapper.setBytesReadCount(count);
blockingQueue.put(byteArrayWrapper);
}
blockingQueue.put(null); //end of file
} catch(Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} finally {
try {
bufferedInputStream.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
});
Now the writer thread reads those file contents.
Thread writerThread = new Thread(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
try {
while(true) {
ByteArrayWrapper byteWrapper = blockingQueue.take();
if(null == byteWrapper) break;
bufferedOutputStream.write(byteWrapper.getBytesRead(), 0, byteWrapper.getBytesReadCount());
}
bufferedOutputStream.flush();
} catch(Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} finally {
try {
bufferedOutputStream.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
});
Finally, threads are started.
readerThread.start();
writerThread.start();
Theoretically it should read the file from InputStream and save it to the target file. However, in reality, it produces blank pdf file. At some other time, it shows invalid pdf format exception. File size matches with content length of the InputStream. Is there anything I'm missing?
I'm not familiar with ByteArrayWrapper. Does it just hold a reference to the array, like this?
public class ByteArrayBuffer {
final private byte[] data;
public ByteArrayBuffer(byte[] data) {
this.data = data;
}
public byte[] getBytesRead() {
return data;
}
/*...etc...*/
}
If so. that would be the problem: all of the ByteArrayWrapper objects are backed by the same array. Which is repeatedly overwritten by the writer. Even though BlockingQueue did the hard work of safely publishing each object from one thread to the other.
The simplest fix might be to make the ByteArrayWrapper effectively immutable i.e. don't change it after publishing it to another thread. Taking a copy of the array on construction would be simplest:
public ByteArrayWrapper(byte[] data) {
this.data = Arrays.copyOf(data, data.length);
}
One other problem is that "BlockingQueue does not accept null elements" (see BlockingQueue docs), and so the "end of input" sentinel value doesn't work. Replacing null with a
private static ByteArrayWrapper END = new ByteArrayWrapper(new byte[]{});
in the appropriate places will fix that.
By making those changes to a copy of the code I was able to retrieve a faithful copy of a PDF file.
Try to use Android DownloadManager (http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/DownloadManager.html) it is used to handle long-running HTTP requests in the background.
Here you don't need to think about received bytes and the progress is displayed in the notification bar.
There is a good tutorial here: http://blog.vogella.com/2011/06/14/android-downloadmanager-example/

Android saving an ArrayList<CustomObject> onPause and onSaveInstanceState

I have an ArrayList filled with some custom POJO's that I'd like to persist when the user switches screen orientation (onSaveInstanceState) and when e.g. the user hits the back button (onPause).
As far as I know, the SharedPreferences can only hold primitive data types and bundles can not hold references to generic ArrayLists.
Any tips on how to tackle this?
Regards,
Marcus
1- create a class and put everything you want to store for example arraylist of your POJO and make that class implement Serializable interface.
class MyBundle implements Serializable {
ArrayList<POJO> mPOJO;
MyBundle( ArrayList<POJO> pojo){
mPOJO= pojo;
}
}
2- write it to file:
ObjectOutputStream oos = null;
FileOutputStream fout = null;
try{
FileOutputStream fout = new FileOutputStream("Your file path");
ObjectOutputStream oos = new ObjectOutputStream(fout);
oos.writeObject(mb); // mb is an instance of MyBundle
} catch (Exception ex) {
e.printStackTrace();
}finally {
if(oos != null){
oos.close();
}
}
and to get back everything:
ObjectInputStream objectinputstream = null;
try {
streamIn = new FileInputStream("Your file address");
objectinputstream = new ObjectInputStream(streamIn);
MyBundle mb = (MyBundle) objectinputstream.readObject();
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}finally {
if(objectinputstream != null){
objectinputstream .close();
}
}
i don't know this is correct method or not but i handle this like this this always success while your app lost all cache data itself then also u can get back serializable object->
for generic ArrayLists always use serializable
just look at once http://developer.android.com/reference/java/io/Serializable.html
Try converting the List to Json using Gson or Jackson.
Store the string in the Shared preference. some thing like below code
String listString = gsonSD.toJson(list<object> instance);
SharedPreferences storeDataPref = getContext().getSharedPreferences("list_store_pref", Context.MODE_PRIVATE);
Editor storeDataEditor = storeDataPref.edit();
storeDataEditor.putString("liststringdata", listString).apply();

How to retrieve many objects from .dat File using Java?

I have admin account which should be able to add many users to a .dat file. Then I want to retrieve all the objects from the .dat file into a list for further programming.
public class User implements Serializable { //get and set methods }
This is hwo I am writing each object to the .dat file
public void addNewUser() throws Exception {
User newUser=new User();
newUser.name="test";
newUser.position="admin";
FileOutputStream outStream = new FileOutputStream("Users.dat", true);
ObjectOutputStream objectOutputFile = new ObjectOutputStream(outStream);
// Write the object to the file.
objectOutputFile.writeObject(newUser);
// Close the file.
objectOutputFile.close();
}
How can retrieve all the objects from the .dat file into ArrayList??
public class displayUsers { **//what to do??** }
You can either write the list object and read it as list. But since you're writing user objects individually, you can do something like this -
ObjectInputStream ois = new ObjectInputStream(new FileInputStream("Users.dat"));
Object object = null;
while ((object = ois.readObject()) != null) {
if (object instanceof User) {
User user = (User) object;
list.add(user);
}
}
Of course, you would need to take care of exceptions (like EOFException).
Generally it is bad practice to concatenate individual ObjectOutputStreams in a file without adding any lengths or delimiters. So better write all objects in one pass (and use ObjectOutputStream.reset in case your process is long-running and you fear memory leaks (otherwise ObjectOutputStream will keep a reference to every object it serialized before) or add them to a List and write it.
If you have to write it in multiple passes, I'd suggest to write the individual objects to a ByteArrayOutputStream first, and then use DataOutputStream to write the array prefixed by its length. That way, you can use DataInputStream to get out the individual byte arrays and use ByteArrayInputStream to deserialize them.
In case this does not work, you can try this solution (depending on the lookahead used by ObjectInputStream, this might not work for more complex objects with custom serialization formats, though, so use at your own risk):
public static void displayUsers() throws Exception {
FileInputStream fiis = new FileInputStream("Users.dat");
InputStream fis = new FilterInputStream(fiis) {
#Override
public void close() throws IOException {
// ignore
}
};
try {
while (true) {
ObjectInputStream in = new ObjectInputStream(fis);
User user = (User) in.readObject();
in.close();
System.out.println(user.name + "/" + user.position);
}
} catch (EOFException ex) {
// done
}
fiis.close();
}
List<User> listOfUser = new ArrayList<User>();
ObjectInputStream input = null;
try {
while (true) {
input = new ObjectInputStream(new FileInputStream("Users.dat"));
listOfUser.add(input.readObject());
}
}
catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
finally {
input.close();
}

Android FileObserver onEvent not getting called

Can someone possibly help me with this?
I want to observe a file to see if it gets modified so that I can update the activity. After several tests, I've determined it's just plain not working.
Am I doing something wrong?
I'm creating a FileObserver with an onEvent method to display a Toast and log data just to see if it's working, however the onEvent is never getting called.
I have tried it both with an existing and a new file, but it doesn't seem to work in either case.
Context context = this;
File fileFolder = context.getFilesDir();
String fileName = "quest";
FileObserver questObserver = new FileObserver(fileFolder.getPath()) { // also tried fileFolder.getName()
#Override
public void onEvent(int event, String path) {
Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "onEvent fired", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
Log.d(TAG, "FileObserver().onEvent");
}
};
questObserver.startWatching();
/* create file */
ObjectOutputStream objectOut = null;
try {
FileOutputStream fileOut = context.openFileOutput(fileName, Context.MODE_PRIVATE);
objectOut = new ObjectOutputStream(fileOut);
objectOut.writeObject(new Quest());
fileOut.getFD().sync();
} catch (IOException e) {
Log.d(TAG, e.getMessage());
} finally {
if (objectOut != null) {
try {
objectOut.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
Log.d(TAG, e.getMessage());
}
}
}
/* read file */
ObjectInputStream objectIn = null;
Quest quest = null;
try {
FileInputStream fileIn = context.openFileInput(fileName);
objectIn = new ObjectInputStream(fileIn);
quest = (Quest) objectIn.readObject();
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
// Do nothing
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} finally {
if (objectIn != null) {
try {
objectIn.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
Log.d(TAG, e.getMessage());
}
}
}
Toast.makeText(context, quest.getTitle(), Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
questObserver.stopWatching();
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
'public abstract void onEvent (int event, String path)" -
This method is invoked on a special FileObserver thread. It runs
independently of any threads, so take care to use appropriate
synchronization! Consider using post(Runnable) to shift event handling
work to the main thread to avoid concurrency problems.
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/os/FileObserver.html
If you put the toast through a handler.post(new Runnable(){...}), that should work.
Assuming your file doesn't (always) exist you should probably put your observer on the files folder, obtained like so:
Context ctx = ...;
File filesFolder = ctx.getFilesDir();
Note that this will also ensure that the filesFolder directory will be created.
Your observer will now be notified whenever a file is written, deleted or updated using for instance Context#.openFileOutput(..) - and you can filter in your FileObserver for the file name, in your example "quest".

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