It sounds like you have the right idea. A ContentProvider is a wrapper around your database which allows other applications to access and modify your database in a controlled manner. A Service is basically just a long-running task, such as downloading/ syncing data.
A ContentProvider would provide access to your data to your app and others, and you would use a Service to download the new data, which would then use your ContentProvider to insert that new data into your database. On Aug 19, 4:49 pm, Lily Zhang <lily...@gmail.com> wrote: > I am developing an app and get confused about the idea of Service and > Content Provider in Android. In practice, what will be the difference > between them? > > Content Provider > is a facade and it defines a way to share data among applications. You > many attach a local database to your app or create Content Provider > mapped to a universal database so that all the application on the same > device can share it. > > Service > is long running processes that need to be decoupled from main > activity. It has local and remote service. local service is like the > local database, and remote service is like Content Provider sharing > the database info. > > What My App is doing? > downloads info. from multiple internet resource in the background (I > suppose this will be Service) and store the info. into database, and > multiple applications will need to retrieve the data, format them and > output them to user (I guess it will be a Content Provider). > > What will be the fine line between Service and Content Provider? > Newbie in Android, and any suggestion is welcome. > > Lily -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
