Practical Mobile Forensics - Third Edition

Using content providers

In Android, the data of one application cannot be accessed by another application under normal circumstances. However, Android provides a mechanism through which data can be shared with other applications. This is precisely achieved through the use of content providers. Content providers present data to external applications in the form of one or more tables. These tables are no different from the tables found in a relational database. They can be used by the applications to share data, usually through the URI addressing scheme. They are used by other applications that access the provider using a provider-client object. During the installation of an app, the user determines whether or not the app can gain access to ...