Question

I want my android app to get data from an online database. Here are the two scenarios:

• When I create my db with xampp and I am using the httpost function with my local machines’ ip as argument I see as output what I expect to see (the database at logcat).

My question is: if I run the application from my phone, will it connect to my local machine server or not?

• I also have a site (lets say mysite.com) and in order not to buy another server I am placing the php file and the database on that server. But then my android app connects (or so I think) to the server, but it prints out at logcat the whole html site. I am thinking that this is because the server requires a username and a password and I do not know if I provided them or not?

So, what do you suggest to do? I want my database being sent to my app (so as to use it later).

My code is shown below (I have in comments the only that changes between 2 scenarios)

public class MainActivity extends Activity {
/** Called when the activity is first created. */
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.main);
    setImageClickListener();

}

private void setImageClickListener() {
    ImageView map_image=(ImageView)findViewById(R.id.map_icon);
    map_image.setOnTouchListener(new ImageView.OnTouchListener() {
    //OnTouchListener listener = new OnTouchListener() {
        public boolean onTouch(View v, MotionEvent event) {
            if(!(event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN))
                return false; //If the touch event was not putting the finger down on the screen, return false(Actions may be move, up, and so on)
            final float x = event.getX();
            final float y = event.getY();
            //System.out.println("Coordinates of button pressed are: X is %d"+x+" and Y is %d"+ y);
            if(x>335 && x<395 && y>225 && y< 235)
                DoFirst();

           return true;
        }

});

}
@SuppressWarnings("null")
private void DoFirst() {
    Log.d("SnowReportApp","Do first thing");
    setContentView(R.layout.layout_1);
    String result = "";
    InputStream is = null;
    StringBuilder sb=null;
    //the year data to send
    ArrayList<NameValuePair> nameValuePairs = new ArrayList<NameValuePair>();//() before
    nameValuePairs.add(new BasicNameValuePair("year","1980"));
    //http post
    try{
            HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();
            HttpPost httppost = new HttpPost("192.168.1.67/test.php"); // only this changes to my server url : mysite.com/httpdocs/test.php
            httppost.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(nameValuePairs));
            HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httppost);
            HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity();
            is = entity.getContent();
    }catch(Exception e){
            Log.e("log_tag", "Error in http connection "+e.toString());
    }
    //convert response to string
    try{
            BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is,"iso-8859-1"),8);
            sb = new StringBuilder();
            String line = null;
            while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
                    sb.append(line + "\n");
            }
            is.close();

            result=sb.toString();
    }catch(Exception e){
            Log.e("log_tag", "Error converting result "+e.toString());
    }

    //parse JSON data
    try{
            //JSONObject json_data_1 = new JSONObject(result); 
            JSONArray jArray = new JSONArray(result);
            for(int i=0;i<jArray.length();i++){
                   JSONObject json_data = jArray.getJSONObject(i);
                    Log.i("log_tag","id: "+json_data.getInt("id")+
                            ", name: "+json_data.getString("name")+
                            ", sex: "+json_data.getInt("sex")+
                            ", birthyear: "+json_data.getInt("birthyear")
                    );
            }

    }catch(JSONException e){
            Log.e("log_tag", "Error parsing data "+e.toString());
    }

} 

My php file located on either c:\xampp\htdocs or on mysite server is this:

<?php

  mysql_connect("127.0.0.1","root","");

  mysql_select_db("peopledata");

  $q=mysql_query("SELECT * FROM people WHERE birthyear>'".$_REQUEST['year']."'");

  while($e=mysql_fetch_assoc($q))

          $output[]=$e;

       print(json_encode($output));

mysql_close();?>

Answer 1

My question is: if I run the application from my phone, will it
connect to my local machine server or not?

The answer is probably not. It really all depends on:

• Whether you’re using Wifi or Carrier data (3G, etc)
• Whether your DB ports are open (PC firewall)
• If Carrier data, is your PC reachable from the Internet (static IP)

You’re better off using mysite.com for your DB and whatever backend you need.

As for your other questions, I cannot answer them as they’re quite vague. Consider researching your problem some more and perhaps come back with a targeted set of questions.