I need to share some sensitive data among activities.
I have two EditText which are basically username and password
I am consuming a webservice which on the base of provided username and password return some user info (DataType:String). Like userid,useremail etc.. which is basically in CSV format
I need these piece of information throughout my application.But i can't figure out which is the better way.
-- One way i could found out so far is to use sqlite with MonoAndroid
-- Other way i found out is using Application class
I just started to learn android today , but i want to know if there are some other ways to share data ?
As you mentioned, a global Application class and the database are two good ways to share application-wide data. One thing to be careful with is that your Application class could be recycled when the app is in the background, so you would lose any data that hasn't been persisted to something more permanent.
In addition to the database, you can also persist data down to the filesystem as well. This recipe from Xamarin has an example of writing directly to a file. Most of the classes you'll need to do file access are found in the System.IO namespace. Mono for Android also supports isolated storage, which provides a higher level API for reading and writing files.
If you simply need to pass data directly between activities, you can do so by adding it as an extra to the intent. This recipe explains how to do that.
If you want to wrap up access to a particular resource in a more managed fashion that can be accessed by either other parts of your application or even external applications, you can look into implementing a content provider. Android itself provides several built-in content providers for resources like contacts and media, if you need an example of what it's like to use one. This recipe explains how to read from the contacts provider.
Related
As the header indicates, I am looking for the simplest way to sync user-generated data (Integers, Booleans, NSDates, etc) among a small number of individuals (at this point, I am just thinking of sharing data between two people). Within the app, users can populate an array with instances of a custom object and this data is used to populate a UITableview. Assuming all users in the select group have synced their devices they should all see the same data in the tableview.
My original idea was to write to a json file in a shared Dropbox or Google Drive folder. After looking around online, however, I found that this method is likely to lead to data corruption. Cloudkit only allows public or private (single account) syncing, nothing in between. I have seen some posts that recommend using Parse, but that service is now on its way out.
Does anyone know of a (preferably free) way to do this?
You have several options:
CloudKit databases - CloudKit's database system has the concept of a public database which does exactly what you want. It's fairly easy to use as well, and is "free" with an Apple developer account. The only downside is that it's for Apple devices only (AFAIK).
Firebase - Google's Firebase is basically identical to CloudKit in concept and features, but runs on multiple platforms. It is tied to the Google ecosystem, so your uses all need to provide a Google account to use it, but that's a small issue these days.
Realm - from a pure usability perspective, Realm is BY FAR the easiest data storage solution I've seen on iOS. However, it's sharing functionality is currently limited, CloudKit support is scheduled but currently all there is is this. If you only need local storage for now, then definitely keep this on your list.
No matter which engine you choose, users would be limited to certain views of the data through your own code. I would suggest that you save every record with a username of the creator, and then have another table containing read/write permissions, so for instance, the entry for "maurymarkowitz" has "bobsmith,ronsmith,jonsmith". You can retrieve these entries on login and then use them as the inputs to the query-by-example both systems use for getting records.
Thanks for all of the helpful responses. I ended up using cloudkit/coredata and it serves my purpose just fine. I simply used the public option and gave each set of users who are sharing data with each other a unique identifier, which is appended to any records they upload. When a user syncs their data with the cloud the application performs a query for only those records that contain the user's identifier. This way, multiple users can sync data among themselves even though they do not share an iCloud account.
I'm working on switching an iOS app over from storing data using archiving to accessing XML files on a web service, in order to have one central database for many users. I've found resources explaining how to use NSXMLParser, but very little that explains how to create or edit XML files on the database with information entered into text fields on the app.
The web service is up and running, but the Catch-22 is that I can't verify that my parser works properly without also being able to enter data and having it save to the web service.
The data is pretty basic. For example, I might have a Car object that has a few NSString properties- year, make, model, color, and so on. I need to be able to add and delete Cars, as well as edit the properties. Suggestions?
In terms of reading the data, I recently wrote a simple XML parser for iOS called ConiferXML. You can check it out at GitHub. If this doesn't work out there is also another library on GitHub that is a little more complex but does the same thing.
I can't seem to locate a built in mechanism to store user settings. I was hoping that electron provided a standard method for storing user settings across all desktop platforms. If there isn't a precedent for this I can implement it myself, I just didn't want to jump to a custom solution immediately. Research online is pretty sparse in this area. Thanks!
Each platform has different default locations for different kinds of data. So, if you want to store data in default locations based on platform, check out app.getPath(name)
It retrieves a path to a special directory or file associated with name.
You can also use it to differentiate between data the user wants to save, and data your application saves that you don't want to clutter up users directories.
Or if you just want to store files reletive to a specific path you can use the
app.setPath(name,path)
I've faced this particular problem with my Electron app and this post inspired me to write an NPM module called electron-json-storage.
This module allows to easily write/read JSON to/from app.getPath('userData'):
const storage = require('electron-json-storage');
// Write
storage.set('foobar', { foo: 'bar' }).then(function() {
// Read
storage.get('foobar').then(function(object) {
console.log(object.foo);
// will print "bar"
});
});
Electron doesn't give you anything out of the box for this. However, Electron does give you a method for getting the idiomatic location of storing user data in a cross platform way via the app.getPath API.
I'd say the 3 most common ways to do this are:
localStorage (or any HTML5 storage API)
flat JSON file (this is what I do, and I use electron-store for it)
embedded database like IndexedDB, neDB, or sqlite
Which one you choose will depend on your app's needs. If you only need to access this data in the renderer process, then I'd just use localStorage. Most of the time it seems you need to access the data in both the main and renderer, so a JSON file makes sense. If you're dealing with lots of data or complex querying, then maybe a database makes sense. I wrote about this more in detail here.
How about LocalStorage? If you need to access these settings from the browser process, you probably need to write your own (or just use a node.js library that implements this)
The best way that I have found is to store it in a simple file as JSON. The problem is that if you store that JSON in the app dir, then when you update the app, it will get wiped out. So you want to put it in the default directory for user settings for the current operating system. LUCKILY!!!!! There is a library for node developers that will help you find the userdata directory. The module is called appdirectory, and I have used it several times. It is extremely easy to use.
See APPDIRECTORY HERE
One could store data in cookies; Electron has a mechanism for it (https://electronjs.org/docs/api/cookies) and the cookies can be retrieved in the browser (Angular: https://docs.angularjs.org/api/ngCookies/service/$cookies, React/Other: https://github.com/reactivestack/cookies)
I was able to get it working with Angularjs.
I would like to sync a core data app with a user with a different iCloud ID and I am trying to figure out the most graceful way to do this. I do not want the data to sync with all users, but want to be able to sync among family members for instance. From the research I have done, I do not think I can do that using iCloud Core Data sync because it only syncs between devices with the same iCloud ID. I have looked at this stackoverflow answer and read a little bit about Ensembles, Parcelkit and TICoreDataSync, Parse etc., but it is not clear to me if any of those options will allow me to sync with multiple users. Does anyone have a good method for syncing a Core Data app with multiple users?
Ensembles and TiCoreDataSync might work. They can use Dropbox file syncing, so in principle they should work with Dropbox shared folders. I don't think these are the main intended uses, so I suggest contacting the developers and/or doing some good testing yourself before assuming this would actually work.
You'll need to think about the user experience, though. At a minimum, your users would both need Dropbox accounts and would have to set up a shared folder before beginning to sync data this way.
Parcelkit probably won't work. It uses Dropbox's data store API which, unlike other Dropbox services, doesn't appear to support shared data.
Services that do support this kind of sharing exist-- for example, Parse and Firebase-- but make sure to review their pricing carefully before using them. Also of course, there have been any number of projects that have their own custom server back end, but that obviously requires having someone on the team who can do that kind of work.
You need to think about other device types (Android at least) if you want your application to be reaching more users.
I'm doing the same now by the following way:
Setup an online database with proper web services (careful with implementation for security matters - DB should NEVER be exposed by anything other than the web services).
Create a Class for your communication with the server (using Class methods with security handling like authentication and authorisation).
Use the class in your app to communicate with the server (SQL operations are done on the server).
To integrate with CoreData you need to create the model in your app similar to the structure in the backend database. Then you need to create a similar class for the app that deals with only local CoreData.
A higher level class might be required if you want to make sure that operations done on both server and local data storage.
Besides, you have to implement a lot of conditions to make sure that data written in local ONLY after making sure that it is stored online (or create an engine for differed operations to run later).
Another Way if you are familiar with notifications:
Use structured notifications between devices for data operations in order to keep everything in sync with other users. The problem with this is the "Autonomy" of the operations. If two operations were done in approximately the same time, you have to find a way to make sure the order of the operations is done properly (maybe timestamp or something).
I'm looking into the same thing for my app and I 'think' you can do a fairly unsecured version of what you are after using using the public folder in cloud kit as mentioned in this question (no accepted answer at time of posting) : Private data sharing using CloudKit
You would need to find a way to differentiate between data that is truly public and those shared among the users you need and some level of authentication.
I'm going to try exporting a permission file with access permission in it to whomever I want to share with combined with a unique identifier located in that permission file.
Keep in mind, as mentioned in the comments of the linked answer, my implementation will be security by obscurity (thanks for that phrase) unless you find a way of adding proper validation to it but my data is relatively insensitive.
Hope this, or any ridicule in the comments, points you in the right direction : )
i've used contentproviders with DB.it has some data in it.i need to make those data available to all other applications.How? Usually the main use of content provider is to store and retrieve data and make it accessible to all applications. They’re the only way to share data across applications; there’s no common storage area that all Android packages can access.I used the code from below link..
http://ashwinrayaprolu.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/custom-content-provider-in-android/
Distribute your Content URI and define your API.
Provide the string of your Content Authority and the paths you recognize. Explain to your users how the tables in your DB map to your paths. Document what the columns in your tables are. Users with your content URI can read and write your databases using standard calls to ContentResolver and the insert/delete/update/query calls.
Provide access control in your <provider> tag in your AndroidManifest.xml. Look at The documentation especially with regard to android:exported, android:grantUriPermissions, android:permission, android:readPermission and android:writePermission. You'll need to decide how to use those based on your use cases. Also, the <grant-uri-permission> tag will give you even more fine-grained control.
Write other apps to use those calls you just documented and allowed permissions for.