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Android Web Connectivity Overview

Android applications can access web resources through HTTP requests using the URL and HttpURLConnection classes. Responses are typically in HTML, XML, JSON or image formats. XML resources can be parsed using DOM, SAX or pull parsing. Pull parsing recursively parses the required portions of XML in a low memory efficient way by generating parsing events. Best practices for web connectivity include performing network operations in a background thread, adapting to connectivity changes, implementing caching, and allowing user preferences.

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Usama Chaudhary
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7 views10 pages

Android Web Connectivity Overview

Android applications can access web resources through HTTP requests using the URL and HttpURLConnection classes. Responses are typically in HTML, XML, JSON or image formats. XML resources can be parsed using DOM, SAX or pull parsing. Pull parsing recursively parses the required portions of XML in a low memory efficient way by generating parsing events. Best practices for web connectivity include performing network operations in a background thread, adapting to connectivity changes, implementing caching, and allowing user preferences.

Uploaded by

Usama Chaudhary
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Android Web Connectivity

Web Connectivity

Web

Resource Formats

A global collection of useful resources


Client-server architecture connecting users (through agents) with webservers over the internet using standard protocols
Basic Protocol : HTTP
Web services support information exchange with other applications
Native mobile application acts as a client / agent and responsible for
interpreting / parsing the resource
HTML, XML, JSON, Image, etc

Java / Android API

URL
HttpURLConnection

HTTP Protocol

A simple message-based protocol

Message Types

Request

represents client request to access a resource (identified by URI)


Different request methods supported (e.g. GET, POST, etc)

Response

Represents server response capturing resource representation in one of the supported formats

Example request

Example response

GET [Link] HTTP/1.1


Host: [Link]
HTTP/1.1 200
Content-type: text/html
Content-length: xx
<html>
<head> </head>
<body> Google </body>
</html>

1. Open connection
with web resource

try{

URL url = new URL("../resource");


HttpURLConnection connection = (HttpURLConnection) [Link]();
[Link](10000);
[Link](15000);
[Link]("GET");
[Link](true);
[Link]();
StringBuilder content = new StringBuilder();
BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(
new InputStreamReader( [Link]() ) );
while( (line = [Link]()) != null ){
[Link](line);
}
line = [Link]();
parse(line);
} catch(Exception ex) {
[Link]();
}

3. Parse

2. Download resource
as a stream

Example: XML resource


<pictures>
<category name="Architecture" count="3">
<im title=... url=... description=... />
<im title=... url=... description=... />
<im title=... url=... description=... />
</category>
<category name="Art" count="3">
<im title=... url=... description=... />
<im title=... url=... description=... />
<im title=... url=... description=... />
</category>
</pictures>

XML Parsing

DOM

Serial

Tree-based
Parses entire XML document and provides a tree-based representation of elements
in form of a DOM
Easy-to-use
Memory intensive as well as slow
Event-based
Parses entire XML document and generates events when a specific XML construct
encountered
Requires customized code for handling events
Efficient with low memory footprint

Pull

A good compromise between DOM and Serial parsing


Underlying implementation based upon Serial parsing

XML DOM

XML Pull Parsing

Simple Event Model

START_DOCUMENT
START_TAG
TEXT
END_TAG
END_DOCUMENT

Recursive descent parsing

Instead of parsing and managing entire document


Parse only the portion interested in and skip the rest

pictures = new ArrayList<Picture>();


try{
XmlPullParser parser = [Link]();
[Link](new StringReader(xml));
int event = [Link]();
while(event != XmlPullParser.END_DOCUMENT){
if(event == XmlPullParser.START_TAG &&
[Link]().equals("category") ) {
category = [Link](null,"name");
}
if(event == XmlPullParser.START_TAG &&
[Link]().equals("im") ){
String url = [Link](null,"url");
String description = [Link](null,"description");
[Link](new Picture(url,description,category));
}
event = [Link]();
}
} catch(Exception ex){ }

Best practices

Download resources in a separate thread, AsyncTask

Check for connectivity changes

Adapt according to network state

Use of broadcast receivers and connectivity manager

Cache data

Wi-fi
Mobile radio
No connection

Cache size
Synchronization frequency
Strategies

Preferences

Allow user to specify connectivity and cache preferences

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