Android Unboxing

Having fun with Android today:

Creating an Android 'Library'

In some instances, you might want Android classes available to multiple Android applications. To simply add an Android project to the another Android project's build path will not work (a good explanation is here: http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/browse_thread/thread/5537ae10e4143240). A workaround is summarized below:

1. Create a new Android project.

2. Add any necessary classes and interfaces (including AIDLs)

3. Allow the AIDLs to compile and generate Java code.

4. Update the .project file. This file is located in the root of the Android project. It contains the following contents:

1:  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> 
2:  <projectDescription> 
3:  <name>[project name]</name> 
4:  <comment></comment> 
5:  <projects> 
6:  </projects> 
7:  <buildSpec> 
8:  <buildCommand> 
9:  <name>com.android.ide.eclipse.adt.ResourceManagerBuilder</name> 
10:  <arguments> 
11:  </arguments> 
12:  </buildCommand> 
13:  <buildCommand> 
14:  <name>com.android.ide.eclipse.adt.PreCompilerBuilder</name> 
15:  <arguments> 
16:  </arguments> 
17:  </buildCommand> 
18:  <buildCommand> 
19:  <name>org.eclipse.jdt.core.javabuilder</name> 
20:  <arguments> 
21:  </arguments> 
22:  </buildCommand> 
23:  <buildCommand> 
24:  <name>com.android.ide.eclipse.adt.ApkBuilder</name> 
25:  <arguments> 
26:  </arguments> 
27:  </buildCommand> 
28:  </buildSpec> 
29:  <natures> 
30:  <nature>com.android.ide.eclipse.adt.AndroidNature</nature> 
31:  <nature>org.eclipse.jdt.core.javanature</nature> 
32:  </natures> 
33:  </projectDescription> 

Remove the following elements from the buildSpec:

1:   <buildCommand>  
2:  <name>com.android.ide.eclipse.adt.ResourceManagerBuilder</name>  
3:  <arguments>  
4:  </arguments>  
5:  </buildCommand>  
6:  <buildCommand>  
7:  <name>com.android.ide.eclipse.adt.PreCompilerBuilder</name>  
8:  <arguments>  
9:  </arguments>  
10:  </buildCommand>  
11:  <buildCommand>  
12:  <name>com.android.ide.eclipse.adt.ApkBuilder</name>  
13:  <arguments>  
14:  </arguments>  
15:  </buildCommand>  

Remove the following element from the natures:

1:   <nature>com.android.ide.eclipse.adt.AndroidNature</nature>  

5. Save the updated .project file.

6. Refresh the Android project in Eclipse.

7. Clean the project (select the project folder, select Project > Clean... from the main menu)

8. Remove the R.java file from the generated files.

Your project should now be ready to be added to the build path of other Android projects.

Updating sqlite database from the command line - django

I'm working with django today and realized halfway through that my database was incorrect. I needed to drop columns from a table and create a new table. The syncdb command, from what I've read, does create new tables, but it will not drop columns. So, I had to directly access the sqlite database from the command line. Luckily this is pretty easy. Just navigate in the Terminal window to the directory where the database file is saved. Then run the following command:

sqlite3 [database filename]

This will start sql in the Terminal window. From here, you can run the typical sql commands to select rows, update rows, etc. In my case, I simply dropped all tables so I could start from scratch:

DROP TABLE search_searchresult;

This could be a very useful for other problems, such as uploading bulk data.