Palm OS Programming, 2nd Edition

Using the Backup Conduit

You may have an application that doesn’t require its own conduit. In such cases, you can rely on the Backup conduit. First, let’s discuss the types of applications that can profitably use this approach. Then we’ll tell you what you need to do to set this up on your application.

The Backup conduit works on any database that has the backup flag set and has been modified since the last sync, unless the database type is DATA and it has an associated conduit.

The Backup conduit will always back up non-DATA databases, but it will back up only those DATA databases that have no associated conduit. The built-in PIM applications use DATA as their database type; that way, if the associated conduit exists, it’ll be responsible for backing up the database, but if the conduit isn’t there, the Backup conduit will take over.

Whenever the Backup conduit is used, the data in the database is completely copied from the Palm device to the desktop and saved as a PDB (database) or PRC (application) file. Since each record is copied from the database, you don’t want to use this as a solution for large databases that change often.

Applications That Might Use the Backup Conduit

The Backup conduit is well suited to the following types of applications:

Games

Where you save top-score information

Utilities

Where you save some user settings

Alarm clocks or other timers

Where you save world clock information or other types of alarm settings

Electronic books

Where you save display information, ...