Book Image

Android Programming for Beginners

By : John Horton, Paresh Mayani
Book Image

Android Programming for Beginners

By: John Horton, Paresh Mayani

Overview of this book

Android is the most popular OS in the world. There are millions of devices accessing tens of thousands of applications. It is many people's entry point into the world of technology; it is an operating system for everyone. Despite this, the entry-fee to actually make Android applications is usually a computer science degree, or five years’ worth of Java experience. Android Programming for Beginners will be your companion to create Android applications from scratch—whether you’re looking to start your programming career, make an application for work, be reintroduced to mobile development, or are just looking to program for fun. We will introduce you to all the fundamental concepts of programming in an Android context, from the Java basics to working with the Android API. All examples are created from within Android Studio, the official Android development environment that helps supercharge your application development process. After this crash-course, we’ll dive deeper into Android programming and you’ll learn how to create applications with a professional-standard UI through fragments, make location-aware apps with Google Maps integration, and store your user’s data with SQLite. In addition, you’ll see how to make your apps multilingual, capture images from a device’s camera, and work with graphics, sound, and animations too. By the end of this book, you’ll be ready to start building your own custom applications in Android and Java.
Table of Contents (37 chapters)
Android Programming for Beginners
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Database 101


Let's answer a whole bunch of database-related questions and then we can get started with making apps that use SQLite. So, what is a database?

What is a database?

A database is both a place of storage and the means to retrieve, store, and manipulate data. It helps to visualize a database before learning how to use it. The actual structure of the internals of a database varies greatly depending upon the database in question. SQLite actually stores all its data in a single file.

It will aid our comprehension greatly; however, if we visualize our data as if it were in a spreadsheet or sometimes, multiple spreadsheets, our database, just like a spreadsheet, will be divided into multiple columns that represent different types of data and rows that represent entries in the database.

Think about a database with names and exam scores. Take a look at the following visual representation of this data to understand how a database would look:

Note, however, that there is an extra column of data...