Android/SQLite: Insert-Update table columns to keep the identifier

Question

Currently, I am using the following statement to create a table in an SQLite database on an Android device.

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS 'locations' (
  '_id' INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT, 'name' TEXT, 
  'latitude' REAL, 'longitude' REAL, 
  UNIQUE ( 'latitude',  'longitude' ) 
ON CONFLICT REPLACE );

The conflict-clause at the end causes that rows are dropped when new inserts are done that come with the same coordinates. The SQLite documentation contains further information about the conflict-clause.

Instead, I would like to keep the former rows and just update their columns. What is the most efficient way to do this in a Android/SQLite environment?

• As a conflict-clause in the CREATE TABLE statement.
• As an INSERT trigger.
• As a conditional clause in the ContentProvider#insert method.
• ... any better you can think off

I would think it is more performant to handle such conflicts within the database. Also, I find it hard to rewrite the ContentProvider#insert method to consider the insert-update scenario. Here is code of the insert method:

public Uri insert(Uri uri, ContentValues values) {
    final SQLiteDatabase db = mOpenHelper.getWritableDatabase();
    long id = db.insert(DatabaseProperties.TABLE_NAME, null, values);
    return ContentUris.withAppendedId(uri, id);
}

When data arrives from the backend all I do is inserting the data as follows.

getContentResolver.insert(CustomContract.Locations.CONTENT_URI, contentValues);

I have problems figuring out how to apply an alternative call to ContentProvider#update here. Additionally, this is not my favored solution anyways.

---

Edit:

@CommonsWare: I tried to implement your suggestion to use INSERT OR REPLACE. I came up with this ugly piece of code.

private static long insertOrReplace(SQLiteDatabase db, ContentValues values, String tableName) {
    final String COMMA_SPACE = ", ";
    StringBuilder columnsBuilder = new StringBuilder();
    StringBuilder placeholdersBuilder = new StringBuilder();
    List<Object> pureValues = new ArrayList<Object>(values.size());
    Iterator<Entry<String, Object>> iterator = values.valueSet().iterator();
    while (iterator.hasNext()) {
        Entry<String, Object> pair = iterator.next();
        String column = pair.getKey();
        columnsBuilder.append(column).append(COMMA_SPACE);
        placeholdersBuilder.append("?").append(COMMA_SPACE);
        Object value = pair.getValue();
        pureValues.add(value);
    }
    final String columns = columnsBuilder.substring(0, columnsBuilder.length() - COMMA_SPACE.length());
    final String placeholders = placeholderBuilder.substring(0, placeholdersBuilder.length() - COMMA_SPACE.length());
    db.execSQL("INSERT OR REPLACE INTO " + tableName + "(" + columns + ") VALUES (" + placeholders + ")", pureValues.toArray());

    // The last insert id retrieved here is not safe. Some other inserts can happen inbetween.
    Cursor cursor = db.rawQuery("SELECT * from SQLITE_SEQUENCE;", null);
    long lastId = INVALID_LAST_ID;
    if (cursor != null && cursor.getCount() > 0 && cursor.moveToFirst()) {
        lastId = cursor.getLong(cursor.getColumnIndex("seq"));
    }
    cursor.close();
    return lastId;
}

When I check the SQLite database, however, equal columns are still removed and inserted with new ids. I do not understand why this happens and thought the reason is my conflict-clause. But the documentation states the opposite.

The algorithm specified in the OR clause of an INSERT or UPDATE overrides any algorithm specified in a CREATE TABLE. If no algorithm is specified anywhere, the ABORT algorithm is used.

Another disadvantage of this attempt is that you loose the value of the id which is return by an insert statement. To compensate this, I finally found an option to ask for the last_insert_rowid. It is as explained in the posts of dtmilano and swiz. I am, however, not sure if this is safe since another insert can happen inbetween.

Answer 1

I can understand the perceived notion that it is best for performance to do all this logic in SQL, but perhaps the simplest (least code) solution is the best one in this case? Why not attempt the update first, and then use insertWithOnConflict() with CONFLICT_IGNORE to do the insert (if necessary) and get the row id you need:

public Uri insert(Uri uri, ContentValues values) {
    final SQLiteDatabase db = mOpenHelper.getWritableDatabase();
    String selection = "latitude=? AND longitude=?"; 
    String[] selectionArgs = new String[] {values.getAsString("latitude"),
                values.getAsString("longitude")};

    //Do an update if the constraints match
    db.update(DatabaseProperties.TABLE_NAME, values, selection, null);

    //This will return the id of the newly inserted row if no conflict
    //It will also return the offending row without modifying it if in conflict
    long id = db.insertWithOnConflict(DatabaseProperties.TABLE_NAME, null, values, CONFLICT_IGNORE);        

    return ContentUris.withAppendedId(uri, id);
}

A simpler solution would be to check the return value of update() and only do the insert if the affected count was zero, but then there would be a case where you could not obtain the id of the existing row without an additional select. This form of insert will always return to you the correct id to pass back in the Uri, and won't modify the database more than necessary.

If you want to do a large number of these at once, you might look at the bulkInsert() method on your provider, where you can run multiple inserts inside a single transaction. In this case, since you don't need to return the id of the updated record, the "simpler" solution should work just fine:

public int bulkInsert(Uri uri, ContentValues[] values) {
    final SQLiteDatabase db = mOpenHelper.getWritableDatabase();
    String selection = "latitude=? AND longitude=?";
    String[] selectionArgs = null;

    int rowsAdded = 0;
    long rowId;
    db.beginTransaction();
    try {
        for (ContentValues cv : values) {
            selectionArgs = new String[] {cv.getAsString("latitude"),
                cv.getAsString("longitude")};

            int affected = db.update(DatabaseProperties.TABLE_NAME, 
                cv, selection, selectionArgs);
            if (affected == 0) {
                rowId = db.insert(DatabaseProperties.TABLE_NAME, null, cv);
                if (rowId > 0) rowsAdded++;
            }
        }
        db.setTransactionSuccessful();
    } catch (SQLException ex) {
        Log.w(TAG, ex);
    } finally {
        db.endTransaction();
    }

    return rowsAdded;
}

In truth, the transaction code is what makes things faster by minimizing the number of times the database memory is written to the file, bulkInsert() just allows multiple ContentValues to be passed in with a single call to the provider.