Choosing Best Storage Type in Android

Question

There are many similar questions about this issue but I have clear points about my question to ask you.

I am new at Android development and before only I developed small applications which store small sized data. For example country List, calendar, birthday reminder etc. I stored my small data in single XML file and I parsed it with easy methods. This was enough for me. But for my Mobile Application Development Course I took a project which will store huge static data.

Specifications of my project will like these:

• There are about 200 entities.
• Each entity has about 20 sub categories which they stored in text format.
• Each sub category has about 30-sub categories which they stored again in text format.
• Also for each parent entity I will have 2-3 image

If I calculate simply, I have to store 200 X 20 X 30 = 120.000 static data for my application and data does not change. This is only install and use application. Online data interaction is not necessary. (If there are some changes for data I will relase major updates in long periods of time.)

My question is about storing method.

Which way should I choose? SQLite or XML parsing? For your answer can you explain advantages / disadvantages for your choice?

Answer 1

Interesting project, although not necessarily realistic.

To manage a large amount of "static" data, you'll want a database. XML parsing forces you to store the data in memory, which means that you have to read it into memory on a regular basis. Remember that you can't count the in-memory data being around when the user goes to your app; Android may have destroyed your app previously.

On the other hand, you can use an SQLite database on disk directly from your app. It's persistent, even if your app goes away. You'll have to load the database once, when you install the app.

Consider wrapping your SQLite database in a content provider. This will, among other things, allow you to do asynchronous queries using a CursorLoader.