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Connecting to Android Databases


Figure 1. "Add Data Source" Actions

To connect to a database in an Android device (including the Android emulator), your project must be an Android application and it must be running on the emulator or a real device.

Live Device Connection

This is a new feature introduced in SQLScout 2.0 that allows you to connect, manage and update databases in your Android device, in real time.

One-time setup:

Note: SQLScout 4.3.0 (or newer) requires sqlscout-server 4.1 (or newer.)

  1. Add IDEScout's Maven repository to the top-level build.gradle file in your project: 
      allprojects {
      repositories {
          jcenter()
          maven {
              url 'http://www.idescout.com/maven/repo/'
          }
      }
  }
  2. Add SQLScout Server as a dependency to the debug and release build variants in your project's app module: 
      debugImplementation 'com.idescout.sql:sqlscout-server:4.1'
  releaseImplementation 'com.idescout.sql:sqlscout-server-noop:4.1'
    Note: com.idescout.sql:sqlscout-server-noop' is a no-op artifact meant to be used in release builds.
  3. In the onCreate method of your main Activity invoke the method com.idescout.sql.SqlScoutServer#create as follows: 
      @Override
  public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    SqlScoutServer.create(this, getPackageName());
  4. (Optional) Use SQLScoutServer's lifecycle methods to pause/resume debugging and dispose the server: 
      private SqlScoutServer sqlScoutServer;

  @Override
  public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    sqlScoutServer = SqlScoutServer.create(this, getPackageName());

  @Override
  protected void onResume() {
    sqlScoutServer.resume();
  }

  @Override
  protected void onPause() {
    sqlScoutServer.pause();
  }

  @Override
  protected void onDestroy() {
    sqlScoutServer.destroy();
  }
To create a "live device connection":
  1. Click the "Add" action in the SQLite Explorer and select "Android (Live Device Connection)" (see figure 1). The "New Android SQLite Data Source" dialog will appear (see figure 2).
  2. Enter the name of the Data Source. Please note that this is a logical name for the database connection and not the name of the database itself.
  3. Select the device from the "Device" drop-down. An empty drop-down means that there are not any running Android devices connected to the IDE.
  4. Select the package name (or application ID) from the "Package name" drop-down. The drop-down only includes packages (or application IDs) that contain a database.
  5. Select the type of storage: internal or external memory of the device or emulator.
  6. Select the SQLite database from the "Database" drop-down.
  7. Click "OK".


Figure 2. "New Android SQLite Data Source" dialog

Download Database to Disk (for offline usage)

This option allows you to download a database from an Android device. The database will be copied to your local hard disk and can be used even if your Android application is not running.

  1. Click the "Add" action in the SQLite Explorer and select "Android (Download Database locally)" (see figure 1). The "New Android SQLite Data Source" dialog will appear (similar to the one in figure 2).
  2. Follow the same steps described in the previous section.