Question

I am trying to write to an existing XML file in the /res/xml directory on an Android device. Two questions:

1) Are these files able to be overwritten?
2) If so, how can I obtain a handle to that file?

I am trying this to no avail:

    FileOutputStream fos;

    try {
        fos = openFileOutput("/res/xml/scores.xml", Context.MODE_PRIVATE);
        fos.write(writer.toString().getBytes());
        fos.close();
    } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (IOException e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

UPDATE

Trying to read from the file using:

....
        PriorityQueue<Score> scores = new PriorityQueue<Score>();
    XmlPullParserFactory xmlFac = XmlPullParserFactory.newInstance();
    XmlPullParser qXML = xmlFac.newPullParser();
    File scoresFile = new File(c.getExternalFilesDir(null), "scores.xml");
    InputStream is = new FileInputStream(scoresFile);
    qXML.setInput(is,null);
....

Trying to write to the file using:

....
    File scoresFile = new File(getExternalFilesDir(null), "scores.xml");
    OutputStream os = new FileOutputStream(scoresFile);

    os.write(writer.toString().getBytes());
    os.flush();
    os.close();
....

Answer 1

You need to use the external storage on the device. You can’t and shouldn’t be writing to the resources. Instead, copy the resource to the external storage, and then modify it there.

EDIT: You can also use your application’s internal data folder to save files to, but again, you will want to copy your resource there if you want to modify it. This will allow the files to remain internal to your application.