Question

What is the best way to keep a List<String[]> while my application runs? I am having problems with my approach. It most of the time gives me an OutOfMemory Error since the list is too big.

The List<String[]> is the result of parsing a csv file that I have downloaded online. What I do is parse the csv in an activity then save its result in a static class member like:

String url = "http://xxx/pdf/pms/pms_test.csv";
try {
    InputStream input = new URL(url).openStream();
    CSVReader reader = new CSVReader(new InputStreamReader(input));
    SchedController.sched = reader.readAll();
    input.close();
} 

…then access ClassName.sched on different activities.

I am doing this so that the parsed data will be available in every activity… And I don’t have to parse again. What can I do to improve it?

Answer 1

I think you can have 2 approaches.

1. You save the file and parse it in a lazy loading way
2. You create a database and save your data.

I suggest you to create a database, this is not difficult and let you to manage well your data. You can do easily lazyLoading with cursor, or use a ORM (ORMLite / Greendao)… I think this is the best way and the fastest to load your data.

Hope this will help you.