Question

What is considered to be best practice for handling database connections? (I omitted the constructor and onUpgrade method within the DatabaseHelper class) These are just 2 ways I found on the internet, perhaps you have a better way of handling? I would love to hear.

Option 1

public class DatabaseManager {

private SQLiteDatabase mDb;

public DatabaseManager(Context context) {

   DatabaseHelper helper = new DatabaseHelper(context);
   helper.getWritableDatabase();
}

// ... methods that use mDb

private class DatabaseHelper extends SQLiteOpenHelper {

   @Override
   public void onCreate(SQLiteDatabase db) {

      mDb = db;
      //create database
   }

   @Override
   public void onOpen(SQLiteDatabase db) {

      mDb = db;
   }
}

}

Option 2

public class DatabaseManager {

private DatabaseHelper mDbHelper;

public DatabaseManager(Context context) {

   mDbHelper = new DatabaseHelper(context);
}

// ... methods that fetch the db

private void sampleMethod() {
   SQLiteDatabase db = mDbHelper.getWritableDatabase();
   //do stuff with database
   mDbHelper.close();
}

private static class DatabaseHelper extends SQLiteOpenHelper {

   @Override
   public void onCreate(SQLiteDatabase db) {

      //create database
   }
}

}

Also, is it needed to call close() everytime you used the database within option 2? As for using option 1, I guess you need to call close() when the app’s onDestroy is called?

Answer 1

I used to worry about all this but recently I started using ORMLite. It is a very light ORM with Android libraries and saves you worrying about this kind of stuff.

I would say that this could very soon become best practice as it removes a lot of repeated code when dealing with databases. It is also being updated regularly and the maintainer responds to queries very quickly.