I plan on reading several files when my app/game is created and using the information from them for the entirety of the app. I also have to write to the file at one point.
I have two files. One is a 2-column text file that I'll turn into a dictionary for fast searching. The other is a text file that has 11 columns. I'll make a dictionary out of two of the columns, and the other data I need kept as is so I can write to the columns to count the amount of times something happens in different circumstances for datamining.
Currently, I've turned the second file into a list of a list of strings, or List>. I can't figure out how to pass that around in intents. ".putStringArrayListExtra" only works for a list of strings.
Am I going about this the wrong way entirely? This is my first real Android app.
In order to store a data structure into an Intent, it has to be either serializable or parcelable. If your data structure is neither of them, you might create a class that would implement Serializable and manage it. A good example might be found here.
Once done, you then might use Intent.putSerializable(...) to store your data structure. See this:
Using putSerializable in Android
Additionally to this, if you could convert your structure into a JSON structure, you'd already have it done since it would be treated as a String. If not, the above solution should be easy to do.
Related
I want to store multiple values (String, Int and Date) in a file via Java in Android Studio.
I don't have that much experience in that area, so I tried to google a bit, but I didn't get the solution, which I've been looking for. So, maybe you can recommend me something?
What I've tried so far:
Android offers a SharedPreferences feature, which allows a user to save a primitive value for a key. But I have multiple values for a key, so that won't work for me.
Another option is saving data on an external storage medium as file. As far as good. But I want to keep the filesize at minimum and load the file as fast as possible. That's the place, where I can't get ahead. If I directly save all values as simple text, I would need to parse the .txt file per hand to load the data which will take time for multiple entries.
Is there a possibility to save multiple entries with multiple values for a particular key in an efficient way?
No need to reinvent a bicycle. Most probably the best option for your case is using the databases. Look into Sqlite or Realm.
You don’t divulge enough details about your data structure or volume, so it is difficult to give a specific solution.
Generally speaking, you have these three choices.
Serialize a collection
I have multiple values for a key
You could use a Map with a List or Set as its value. This has been discussed countless times on Stack Overflow.
Then use Serialization to write and read to storage.
Text file
Write a text file.
Use Tab-delimited or CSV format if appropriate. I suggest using the Apache Commons CSV library for that.
Database
If you have much data, or concurrency issues with multiple threads, use a database such as the H2 Database Engine.
I have a RuneScape Private Server project coded in Java, and am trying to code a personal "tag" that players can use. I have managed to do this, but everytime there is a restart on the server, their "tag" gets reset to "null".
Their "tag" is initalized by doing a command ";;settag [name]". Their tag is then set to whatever they want. I have done this through a string:
if (command[0].equals("settag")) {
newTag = getCompleteString(command, 1);
newTag = player.yellTag
player.sendMessage("Your tag is now:" +newTag);
}
I am unsure what the most efficient way to fix this would be, I am thinking of just loading and saving through .xml/.txt files. By the way, player.yellTag is where the next command (::mytag) searches it from, which works fine, until there is a restart of the server.
it all depends on the context of your application. If you are planning on having less than a few hundreds players, then a xml file may be ok. You should look at JAXB, which is, afaict, the standard way to store your objects in Java. You can also store them as JSON files, using gson which is way simpler to use and implement than XML stuff.
But if you get to have more than thousands of players, you may want to get some more efficient way to serialize your tags by putting them in a database, and thus an ORM library like hibernate could help you do that.
You may want to make your own stuff, like a tag directory full of files named after unique ids of your players containing the players' tag... It's a lot more "hackish" but still quite efficient.
I've made an Android application which contains most used German words and sentences. The application contains a CSV file which stores all the data.
Currently it is working as expected but I want to ask if there is a better way to store such data directly in the app?
I'm also thinking about the ability to update the data via internet like adding new words and sentences.
Thanks!
Miretz
If you want to modify the content (update, remove etc.) I would suggest using SQLite DB which has a pretty nice built-in integration with the Android platform.
There are 2 types SQLDatabaseLite and SharedPreference. Major difference between both is that one is organized and the other not so.
If you need a quick use of a storage facility within your app for example changing text sizes between activity SharedPrefference works best for you.
If you have a complex database system where you need more than one data to be saved for a particular event SQLDatabaseLite is for you example of this is spreadsheet of data for customers; Name, Phone Number, etc.
I am developing a program which has three JTextBox which my users can enter and check some text for right rule.
So I want add a ablitiy to my program that my users can add or remove their favorite text to a Favorite List and can create folder in Favorite list and put some text in it, such as Bookmark library in FireFox or other web browser.
I want use RandomAccessFile to save favorite list as a favorite source.
How do I implemet it? is there beter way to implement it? is there beter way from RandomAccessFile?
Can any one help me?
Thanks.
There could be lots of approaches. It all depends on what you want to achieve.
Consider using Java serialization mechanism. You can serialize a collection of bookmarks to a file. When your app starts, you deserialize it, and get the same collection data.
The advantages are: simple and easy implementation. The disadvantages: you can't look through stored bookmarks in a text editor or something. The same class hierarchy is to be used to load the serialized version.
XML is human-readable and provides easy interoperability. Other applications would be able to handle your list of bookmarks.
It usually takes more resources to parse the XML and load it to memory and then to create the internal object structures. Though you can use the DOM to traverse the tree all the time, it could be not as convenient as the internal data structure using specialized classes.
Random Access Files work best with fixed record sizes. It means all the fields of your bookmarks must be fixed-length. For example, the name of a bookmark is String. When you write it out to a file, you store it like an array of a fixed length, let's say 20. This automatically implies that if users give a bookmark the name which length is greater than 20, the remaining characters would be lost.
It is also easy to implement with the caveats above. Of course the records could be of variable length, but then you lose the random access to file because you cannot easily calculate the position of a specific record.
Firefox uses JSON for storing bookmarks and allows exporting to HTML. You can explore this too.
You can also store bookmarks, and things you want to keep between sessions in the Preferences,
see http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/prefs/Preferences.html
I am writing a server in java that allows clients to play a game similar to 20 questions. The game itself is basically a binary tree with nodes that are questions about an object and leaves that are guesses at the object's identity. When the game guesses wrong it needs to be able to get the right answer from the player and add it to the tree. This data is then saved to a random access file.
The question is: How do you go about representing a tree within a file so that the data can be reaccessed as a tree at a later time.
If you know where I can find information on keeping data structures like trees organized as such when writing/reading to files then please link it. Thanks a lot.
Thanks for the quick answers everyone. This is a school project so it has some odd requirements like using random access files and telnet.
This data is then saved to a random access file.
That's the hard way to solve your problem (the "random access" bit, I mean).
The problem you are really trying to solve is how to persist a "complicated" data structure. In fact, there are a number of ways that this can be done. Here are some of them ...
Use Java persistence. This is simple to implement; make sure that your data structure is serializable, and then its just a few lines of code to serialize and few more lines to deserialize. The downsides are:
Serialized objects can be fragile in the face of code changes.
Serialization is not incremental. You write/read the whole graph each time.
If you have multiple separate serialized graphs, you need some scheme to name and manage them.
Use XML. This is more work to implement than Java persistence, but it has the advantage of being less fragile. And if something does go wrong, there's a chance you can fix it with XSLT or a text editor. (There are XML "binding" libraries that eliminate a lot of the glue coding.)
Use an SQL database. This addresses all of the downsides of Java persistence, but involves more coding ... and using a different computational model to access the persistent data (query versus graph navigation).
Use a database and an Object Relational Mapping technology; e.g. a JPA or JDO implementation. (Hibernate is a popular choice). These bridge between the database and in-memory views of data in a more or less transparent fashion, and avoids a lot of the glue code that you need to write in the SQL database and XML cases.
I think you're looking for serialization. Try this:
http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/Programming/serialization/
As mentioned, serialization is what you are looking for. It allows you to write an object to a file, and read it back later with minimal effort. The file will automatically be read back in as your object type. This makes things much easier than trying to store the object yourself using XML.
Java serialization has some pitfalls (like when you update your class). I would serialize in a text format. Json is my first choice here but xml and yaml would work as well.
This way you would have a file that doesn't rely on the binary version of your class.
There are several java libraries: http://www.json.org
Some examples:
http://code.google.com/p/json-simple/wiki/DecodingExamples
http://code.google.com/p/json-simple/wiki/EncodingExamples
And to save and read from the file you can use the Commons Io:
import org.apache.commons.io.FileUtis;
import java.io.File;
...
File dataFile = new File("yourfile.json");
String data = FileUtils.readFileToString(dataFile);
FileUtils.writeStringToFile(dataFile, content);