CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidloggingandroid-permissions
Amos
Amos

Reputation: 1341

Android - WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission and writing app's log

All I want is to be able to write a log/exception report for my app inside a very specific folder (related to my app) in order to understand failures and exceptions, so this is the code I'm using:

File logFile = new File(Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory() + File.separator + "/appname/log.txt");
if (!logFile.exists()) {
    try {
        if (logFile.getParentFile().mkdir()) {
            if (!logFile.createNewFile())
                showPopup(context.getString(R.string.app_name), "error creating log file");
        }
    } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}
try {
    BufferedWriter buf = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(logFile, true));
    buf.append(text);
    buf.newLine();
    buf.flush();
    buf.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}

For the above to work, I have to add the following permissions: android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE but when the user reads it, it says both reading and writing the external storage and understandably, this is scaring away the user. Is there a better way to log my app's behavior and use a less scary permission for that?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1537

Answers (2)

vijay
vijay

Reputation: 1495

Try this:

File storageDir = new File(Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory(), "your folder name");
storageDir.mkdir();

Put this code to your manifest file:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />

Upvotes: 0

CommonsWare
CommonsWare

Reputation: 1007266

First, switch from:

File logFile = new File(Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory() + File.separator + "/appname/log.txt");

to:

File logFile = new File(context.getExternalFilesDir(), "log.txt");

Not only does this avoid manual string concatenation when creating your path, and not only does this stop cluttering up the user's external storage with random app-specific directories, but it now means that you can have:

<uses-permission
  android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE"
  android:maxSdkVersion="18" />

to eliminate WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE on API Level 19+.

Beyond that, try raising your targetSdkVersion to 4 or higher. Quoting the docs for READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE:

Note: If both your minSdkVersion and targetSdkVersion values are set to 3 or lower, the system implicitly grants your app this permission. If you don't need this permission, be sure your targetSdkVersion is 4 or higher.

Upvotes: 3

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