Question

Is there any documentation on how to best deal with database upgrades in android?

I am developing an application and have been testing it on my own telephone. All works fine, over the past few deploys I had to add some columns to my table and due to upgrade statements that are executed if the old database version is lesser then a certain database version.

However when I try to run the application on another phone, that gives errors due to the fact that there is no previous version and thus the column isn’t added.

Is there any best practice or documentation on how to handle database upgrading and versioning? I tried googling around for specific questions, but much good didn’t come out of that.

Here’s the relevant code I am using at the moment:

private static final int DATABASE_VERSION = 11;

private static class LocalLoginDatabaseHelper extends SQLiteOpenHelper {
    LocalLoginDatabaseHelper(Context context) {
        super(context, DATABASE_NAME, null, DATABASE_VERSION);
    }
    @Override
    public void onCreate(SQLiteDatabase db) {
        Log.d(TAG,DATABASE_CREATE);
        db.execSQL(DATABASE_CREATE);
    }
    @Override
    public void onUpgrade(SQLiteDatabase db, int oldVersion, int newVersion) {
        if(oldVersion < 11) {
            Log.d(TAG + "Upgrade",DATABASE_ALTER);
            db.execSQL(DATABASE_ALTER);
        }
    }
}

Thanks

Answer 1

Is there any documentation on how to best deal with database upgrades in android?

Use SQLiteOpenHelper, which will give you control when a schema change is detected, so you can upgrade the database.

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UPDATE

However when I try to run the application on another phone, that gives errors due to the fact that there is no previous version and thus the column isn’t added.

Your DATABASE_CREATE needs to have the column as well. For a new install (or after the user does Clear Data on your app), there is no existing database, and so onCreate(), not onUpgrade(), is called.