Question

I want to access an online MySQL database in order to retrieve and manipulate data. I read that the best way would be implementing an own web-service, which returns XML and then parse it in Android, is it right?
Does anybody have a basic tutorial?

Answer 1

Since you want to access a remote server which has your DB and other stuff.
You basically have two options.

1 – ) Either directly access your server via sockets etc.

2 – ) Or create a web service which will connect your server to the outside. ( I.e : Android Client,iOs client etc.)

The best practice is to create a web service and then consume it in your Android application.

Check these for consuming XML in Android.

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/x-android/

http://www.warriorpoint.com/blog/2009/07/19/android-reading-using-and-working-with-xml-data-and-web-services-in-android/

Check these for creating web services on server side. (Stack independent)

http://davidwalsh.name/web-service-php-mysql-xml-json (PHP)

http://www.roseindia.net/webservices/buildingsimplewebservice.shtml (Java)

http://www.codeguru.com/csharp/csharp/cs_webservices/article.php/c19391/Creating-a-NET-Web-Service.htm (.NET)

And so on there are a lot of stacks to create web services.