php - Send data from android to server via JSON

Question

1. I have MySQL database server
2. I need to update and retrieve data to/from MySQL server via JSON

So, I want to know how to do that, and I pretty confuse with this example statement:

HttpPost httppost = new HttpPost("http://10.0.2.2/city.php");

This means I need to code my application that connect with PHP server before write php to connect to DB right ?

Answer 1

To send data to server you could do this:

private void sendData(ArrayList<NameValuePair> data)
{
     // 1) Connect via HTTP. 2) Encode data. 3) Send data.
    try
    {
        HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();
        HttpPost httppost = new      
        HttpPost("http://www.blah.com/AddAccelerationData.php");
        httppost.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(data));
        HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httppost);
        Log.i("postData", response.getStatusLine().toString());
            //Could do something better with response.
    }
    catch(Exception e)
    {
        Log.e("log_tag", "Error:  "+e.toString());
    }  
}

then to send lets say:

private void sendAccelerationData(String userIDArg, String dateArg, String timeArg,
        String timeStamp, String accelX, String accelY, String accelZ)
{
    fileName = "AddAccelerationData.php";

    //Add data to be send.
    ArrayList<NameValuePair> nameValuePairs = new ArrayList<NameValuePair>(7);
    nameValuePairs.add(new BasicNameValuePair("userID", userIDArg));
    nameValuePairs.add(new BasicNameValuePair("date",dateArg));
    nameValuePairs.add(new BasicNameValuePair("time",timeArg));
    nameValuePairs.add(new BasicNameValuePair("timeStamp",timeStamp));

    nameValuePairs.add(new BasicNameValuePair("accelX",accelX));
    nameValuePairs.add(new BasicNameValuePair("accelY",accelY));
    nameValuePairs.add(new BasicNameValuePair("accelZ",accelZ));

    this.sendData(nameValuePairs);
}

so then the AddAccelerationData.php file on server is:

<?php
/*
 * What this file does is it:
 * 1) Creates connection to database.
 * 2) Retrieve the data being send.
 * 3) Add the retrieved data to database 'Data'.
 * 4) Close database connection.
 */
require_once '../Connection.php'; //connect to a database/disconnect handler.
require_once '../SendAPI.php'; //deals with sending querys.

$server = new Connection();
$send = new Send();

//Connect to database.
$server->connectDB();

//Retrieve the data.
$userID = $_POST['userID'];
$date = $_POST['date'];
$time = $_POST['time'];

$accelX = $_POST['accelX'];
$accelY = $_POST['accelY'];
$accelZ = $_POST['accelZ'];

//Add data to database 'Data'. //Personal method to query and add to database.
$send->sendAccelerationData($userID, $date, $time, $timeStamp, $accelX, $accelY, $accelZ);


//Disconnect from database.
$server->disconnectDB();
?>

This is an example I used recently. Just to note in the php file. I import Connection.php this just deals with the connection to the database. So just replace that with your code for connecting to MYSQL db. Also I imported SendAPI.php (which you can just ignore)This was just my class for sending data. Basically it contained some of the querys I wanted to use. Such as sendAccelerationData(). Basically class was similar to that of stored procedures.